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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The Trump administration reclassified medical marijuana as a less dangerous drug in April. A weekslong hearing on whether to put recreational use in the same category starts Monday in Washington, D.C. -
Respondents to a survey in Colorado expressed interest in trying cannabis as an alternative to pharmaceutical medications and because they had exhausted other interventions. -
The company is a growing operation, and according to Aeriz’s website, it uses 95% less water than traditional soil farming, in a state that desperately needs it. -
The name Trulieve is on more than 20 marijuana dispensaries in Arizona. -
A payment processor for marijuana dispensaries has been ordered by the Arizona Corporation Commission to pay back retirees hundreds of thousands of dollars.
