Lawmakers Pass Bill Shielding Low-Level Marijuana Convictions From Public View

Members of the Maryland House and Senate have advanced legislation to the Governor’s desk (SB 432) requiring state officials to automatically shield from public view the records associated with past, low-level marijuana convictions.

The bill stipulates that the Maryland Judiciary Case Search database may no longer “in any way refer to the existence of records of a charge of possession of cannabis in a case with electronic records if the charge resulted in a conviction that was later pardoned by the Governor.”

Last year, Democratic Gov. Wes Moore signed an executive order pardoning over 175,000 Maryland residents with misdemeanor marijuana-related convictions.

Maryland legalized the adult use cannabis market in 2023.

Pardons, which may be issued by the executive branch, forgive past crimes, but they do not shield records of those crimes from public view or expunge them.

NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano praised lawmakers passage of SB 432, which now awaits action from Gov. Moore.

“Hundreds of thousands of Americans unduly carry the burden and stigma of a past conviction for behavior that most Americans, and a growing number of states, no longer consider to be a crime,” he said. “Our sense of justice and our principles of fairness demand that elected officials and the courts move swiftly to right the past wrongs of cannabis prohibition and criminalization.”

According to publicly available data compiled by NORML, state and local officials have issued over 350,000 marijuana-related pardons and more than two million marijuana-related expungements since 2018.

Full text of the report, Marijuana Pardons and Expungements: By the Numbers, is available from NORML.