L.A. marijuana cases set to be dismissed

According to Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, Los Angeles County is set to dismiss about 60,000 marijuana convictions in the upcoming months. The final step is to consider damages caused by narcotics enforcements before California voted to decriminalize marijuana.

In 2016, California legalized marijuana for recreational use for adults over 21 years of age. Since this law was passed, numerous recreational marijuana dispensaries have popped up throughout Southern California, especially in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas. 

This new business has been profitable as California collected about $817 million in taxes from marijuana sales, according to Marujuana Moment, a cannabis business site. 

Now, Los Angeles County is continuing the work of decriminalization by dismissing these low-level marijuana incarcerations. It only makes sense since it has been five years since Proposition 64 was passed and California immediately began raking in hundreds of millions of dollars off of the same drug that had previously put thousands of people behind bars on minimal charges. 

The time has come and gone for these low-level offenders to be released – not just in Los Angeles County, but throughout the state. As long as California continues to make money from cannabis business owners, entrepreneurs and consumers, the people still unjustly incarcerated by the failed decades-long war on drugs need to be released. That is the only way to serve true justice. 

 

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