Tens of thousands with criminal records eligible for expungement under Minnesota marijuana law
July 27th, 2023 by Caroline Cummings @ www.cbsnews.com
Cameron Taylor was convicted of fifth-degree felony possession of marijuana more than a decade ago.All these years later, he still feels the impact: He's faced barriers to housing and employment, and had to overcome people's perceptions of him because of that record."Obviously I've done a lot of positive things even since the conviction, but there's a lot of things that I still would like to do that sometimes having that felony has still been a barrier," Taylor said. But soon Taylor could get his record cleared because of a sweeping overhaul of Minnesota's drug policy with the legalization of marijuana for recreational use. That law establishes automatic expungement of low-level cannabis crimes, impacting an estimated 66,000, according to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.