1.CANNABIS CONVICTION REPARATION
Eminently achievable: Retroactive clearance of all marijuana misdemeanors.
Seattle actually already did this through City Attorney Pete Holmes earlier this year.
It may be more difficult for the legislature to do, or they might need to direct the state attorney, but unlike HB 1260 – 2017-18: “Providing for the vacation of misdemeanor marijuana offense convictions“, the focus should be on providing for this automatically instead of requiring often under-informed people to go through a process that necessarily is time-consuming and often costly.
Stretch goal: Extend clearances to felonies
This is a tougher sell because folk with say only “bad guys” got felonies but we know that’s not true, and undoing this harm would have an even bigger impact on housing and jobs.
Whether ounces or pounds, people shouldn’t continue to be punished for something we reward folk for doing now (i.e. Uncle Ike’s vs who used to stand on 23rd and Union)
Ultimate goal: Divert recreational cannabis tax funds to a stipend for people with marijuana convictions
The exact formula would involve some tough math, but it ought to be proportional to their punishments: the most severe the punishment, the larger the ongoing payments.
While this would be helpful to lots of people whose lives were derailed by what we now know to be unjust convictions, it’s going to make a radical difference in the lives of the poorest people. Because the drug war has disproportionately targeted people of color, so will the benefits.
Continue reading “A few things Washington State Democrats ought to do next”
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