The governor of Connecticut announced on Tuesday that the state will be automatically clearing records of low-level marijuana records for thousands of people at the beginning of the new year.
Gov. Ned Lamont (D) said that the state has identified about 44,000 eligible possession cases that will be processed automatically at the beginning of the year under a provision of the cannabis legalization bill he signed last year.
Meanwhile, his office said that people with a wider range of minor convictions on their records will be able to petition courts for record-sealing under separate reform legislation will that was enacted this year. The law created a streamlined “Clean Slate” clemency program that’s expected to be fully implemented in the second half of next year.
“On January 1, thousands of people in Connecticut will have low-level cannabis convictions automatically erased due to the cannabis legalization bill we enacted last year,” Lamont said in a press release.
“Especially as Connecticut employers seek to fill hundreds of thousands of job openings, an old conviction for low-level cannabis possession should not hold someone back from pursuing their career, housing, professional, and educational aspirations,” he said.
The announcement comes as the first adult-use marijuana retailers are nearing towards opening in Connecticut, a development that Lamont previewed over the summer.
And while the press release from the governor’s office explains that this…
