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LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles prosecutors will overturn nearly 60,000 marijuana-related convictions about five years after California voters approved cannabis for recreational use, the district attorney’s office said Monday.
Authorities have identified around 58,000 cases eligible for dismissal, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said. The cases go back three decades.
Last year, then-District Attorney Jackie Lacey dismissed 66,000 weed-related convictions.
Gascón, who was elected district attorney in November, said the new layoffs would mean the possibility of a better future for thousands of people.
“This paves the way for them to find jobs, housing and other services that were previously denied to them due to unfair cannabis laws,” Gascón said in a statement.
The 66,000 cases closed last year were based on data from the state’s justice ministry, Gascón’s office said.
The 58,000 currently dismissed cases were discovered after a review of county court records, he said.
California voters approved a measure in 2016 to legalize recreational marijuana. Prosecutors and officials in other states have also moved to clear or dismiss pot convictions after recreational marijuana became legal.
New York began automatically clearing criminal records for people with certain marijuana convictions after recreational marijuana was legalized this year. A 2019 law decriminalized possession and led to the deletion of records.
Eighteen states and Washington, DC, have legalized recreational marijuana, but not all have yet legalized sales.
Andrew Blankstein contributed.
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