When Arizona voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2020, the measure also allowed some past offenses to be expunged.
But a Maricopa County deputy prosecutor has detailed challenges to starting that process in an Ohio State criminal journal.
Arizona’s Proposition 207 allows for certain old marijuana offenses to be erased.
The Ohio State article subtitled "Lessons from Maricopa County" says prosecutors file most of those requests, even though state rules bar submitting them in bulk. And it’s hard for prosecutors to identify qualifying cases because there’s no statewide convictions database.
Marijuana charges can be filed as either felonies or misdemeanors. But those records are not stored long term.
As of January 2024, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office had filed nearly 23,000 expungement requests.
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Organizers of a national marijuana study are recruiting Arizona adults planning to soon start using cannabis to treat a medical condition. -
Sen. J.D. Mesnard is proposing legislation to expand the state's laws which make it a crime to use residential property in a way that creates a public nuisance. -
Phoenix has a reputation, fair or not, of a boom town where old buildings often get demolished. Hit songs were recorded in midtown decades ago. In the 1960s, that success led to construction of what was once the top studio between Dallas and LA. -
The National Institutes of Health says hospitalizations for marijuana in Arizona rose about 20% over five years as the state legalized recreational use. Now researchers in Colorado want to know if a cannabis compound can treat addiction. -
Under the initiative, possession of marijuana would still be legal, but it would target parts of the law that allow for licensed dispensaries and cannabis advertisement.
