Florida state Senator Randolph Bracy (D-Ocree) has sponsored a bill that could allow people across the state to see their misdemeanor marijuana convictions disappear.
This week Bracy announced the legislation at a press conference outside medical marijuana dispensary Curaleaf on Semoran Boulevard. The bill would be introduced in the 2021 legislative season.
The bill would apply to misdemeanor marijuana convictions that include distributing and possessing less than 20 grams. The legislation would not expunge records right away but it would make it easier for people with such convictions to have the removed. The court fees to clear such records would also be waived.
“I think it’s extremely important, especially when you look at the people who have not been able to get a job, not been able to apply for school because of these minor convictions,” Bracy said.
“We have created and expanded a billion-dollar marijuana industry and yet we have not repaired people who for decades have been incarcerated for low-level marijuana crimes,” Bracy went on. “It is time as this industry continues to expand, that we repair people and make people whole so they can start to build their lives so these convictions don’t haunt them for the rest of their lives.”
The bill addresses misdemeanor convictions and not felonies. Bracy expects bipartisan support but wants more to be done in the future.
“I think this is good start,” he said. “I think if we can pass it, we have to build upon what we pass.”
Marijuana law reform advocate and lawyer Sally Kent Peebles said, “If he is able to pass this with misdemeanors, it could certainly happen (with felonies) in the 2022 legislative session.”
“We don’t just want to make sure that moving forward people aren’t arrested,” she said. “We need to right the wrongs of the past. It’s not a complete movement just to address the future. … It doesn’t address the people who are watching the industry boom around them while they are sitting in jail for a simple possession charge.”
John Morgan, the attorney who led the battle to legalize medical marijuana in Florida, said, “As time goes by, most everyone realizes that the marijuana laws that we have had on the books since the ’50s were unjust, inhumane and misguided,” Morgan said. “So many lives have been upended and ruined… because of a marijuana charge. I think as Americans’ attitudes have changed, we know better now.”
