The challenges of marijuana legalization are becoming more and more obvious.
There was something sort of desperate in Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s announcement last month that he had signed an executive order pardoning more than 175,000 Marylanders for misdemeanor marijuana and drug paraphernalia possession. Moore’s office, of course, painted the pardon as “historic.” But there’s a deep disparity between presentation and reality, between the idea of a historic blow for racial justice and the facts on the ground.
The order will likely improve some of its beneficiaries’ employment prospects, although only about a quarter will have their records automatically expunged. It will result in no decarceration, because no Marylander is currently imprisoned on marijuana charges. And because the pardons stretch back to offenses in the 1980s, an unknown fraction of recipients are no longer alive to enjoy their new status. These tepid results make Moore’s pardon feel more like an attempt to reclaim the excitement that came with recreational marijuana legalization two years ago. “See,” it all but says, “legal weed is still something we can feel good about!”
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Dispatch (paywall)
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Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.
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