Criminal justice advocates celebrate Healey’s plan to pardon marijuana possession

Gov. Maura Healey on Wednesday announced plans to pardon anyone in Massachusetts with a misdemeanor conviction for marijuana possession on their record.

The announcement follows through on a campaign promise when Healey was making her bid for governor in 2022. The governor’s plan follows President Joe Biden’s clemency policy for similar convictions at the federal level. Healey’s office said the move could impact hundreds of thousands of people.

“The reason we do this is simple: Justice requires it,” Healey said Wednesday. “Massachusetts decriminalized possession for personal use back in 2008, legalized it in 2016, yet thousands of people are still living with a conviction on their records.”

The pardon still needs approval from the Governor’s Council. If that happens, Healey said it will take effect immediately.

Patty DeJuneas, a clemency and parole lawyer in Boston, said the pardon would help people who have faced discrimination over their criminal records.

“People who have these unfair convictions on their record deserve these pardons,” she said. “Hopefully, in clearing their records, they will have more opportunities that they’ve been prevented from having.”

Simple possession is when someone is convicted for small amounts of marijuana. Since recreational marijuana was legalized in Massachusetts in 2016, it is legal to possess one ounce in public and up to 10 ounces at home.

DeJuneas said an example of simple possession could be someone getting pulled over and getting caught with a joint before that 2016 law change.

“We’re talking about personal use,” she said. “It’s just a matter of getting caught doing things that many people do and have done, including during times when it was criminal.”

From 1995 to 2008, the year Massachusetts decriminalized the possession of one ounce or less of marijuana, there were approximately 8,000 arrests made each year for possessing or selling marijuana, according to an analysis by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.

Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, said the pardon will help people face fewer barriers to getting housing, jobs and an education, ultimately allowing them to build stable lives.

“But this decision is going to be particularly important from a racial justice perspective, because we know that the war on drugs was waged disproportionately in Black communities, despite evidence that white people use and sell drugs at the same rate as Black people,” Rose said.

A 2016 report by the ACLU of Massachusetts found that people of color were disproportionately charged with marijuana-related crimes. In 2014, Black people only made up 8% of the state population but accounted for 24% of marijuana possession arrests that year.

DeJuneas said Black and brown people in Massachusetts are also more impacted by these convictions because they are often stopped and frisked more often than their white counterparts.

Massachusetts implemented an expungement process in 2018 for anyone convicted of simple possession that became legal in 2016. But critics say the process is too cumbersome, and that it’s led to just a fraction of the people who qualify getting their records wiped.

“However, it requires people to know about it, to be proactive about it and to either hire an attorney or learn how to do it themselves,” DeJuneas said. “The pardon, though, is automatic, and the people with these convictions don’t need to do anything at all.”

Diane Adame is a production assistant with GBH News’ Education desk.