Marijuana is now legal under California law, but hundreds of thousands of Californians have criminal records for possessing or selling the drug when it was still banned. Those records can make it harder for people to get a job, obtain a loan, go to college, rent an apartment or otherwise become productive members of their community — even if their marijuana arrest happened decades ago.

Proposition 64 not only allowed the sale and adult use of marijuana going forward, subject to state and local regulation, it applied the law retroactively and created a process for people to have certain pot convictions reduced or expunged entirely from their records. Yet few people — about 4,900 — have filed for expungements in the first year. Perhaps they don’t know that this relief is available. Perhaps it’s too expensive or intimidating; the process requires hiring a lawyer, filing a petition and going to court.

Some prosecutors in California aren’t waiting for petitions. They are proactively reviewing marijuana cases handled by their offices and doing the work to reduce or erase the convictions.

These are not hardened criminals or drug traffickers. Proposition 64 says someone with a conviction for simple possession can have that record erased. Felony convictions for possession or sales can be reduced to misdemeanors, as long as the person doesn’t have a violent background, multiple convictions or a conviction for selling to minors.

Automatic case review are a way to help rectify the injustices and disparities in how marijuana laws had been enforced. Even after the state largely decriminalized marijuana possession, roughly half the people arrested for marijuana crimes in San Francisco were African Americans, even though they made up just 6 percent of the city’s population.

San Francisco is by no means unique. For decades, the war on drugs was disproportionately fought in low-income and minority communities. Despite national surveys showing that whites and blacks use marijuana at approximately the same rates, blacks have over the years been nearly four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites.

If California is serious about repairing the damage created by the war on drugs, then every district attorney in the state ought to follow San Francisco and San Diego’s example. So should the city attorneys who handle misdemeanor prosecutions.

If D.A.’s won’t act, the Legislature should consider having the courts systematically provide the relief that Proposition 64 makes available.

It’s cruel to allow people to continue to suffer the penalties of a conviction for marijuana-related acts that the state no longer considers a crime. The war on marijuana was a mistake, and the sooner California alleviates the damage done, the better for all Californians.

Editorial by the Los Angeles Times

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