In an extensive action that pardoned 175,000 low-level marijuana offences across several decades, the governor of the US state of Maryland ordered a blanket pardon of drug crimes on Monday.
The goal of Democratic Congressman Wes Moore’s measure, which he described as “the most sweeping state-level pardon” in American history, is to rectify the social and economic inequities that disproportionately affect tens of thousands of Black people.
African Americans were disproportionately targeted by drug policy, depriving them of access to housing, education, and jobs. Moore, the first Black governor of an eastern state, claimed he planned to undo the “decades of harm.”
According to him, marijuana was the reason for about half of all state drug arrests in the early 2000s, and Black Marylanders were three times more likely than White residents to be taken into custody on marijuana-related offences.
Additionally, although Black people make up 33% of the state’s six million inhabitants, over 70% of Maryland’s male prison population is Black.
“Today, we take a big step enacting the kinds of policies that can reverse the harm of the past and to help us to work together to build a brighter future,” Moore said as he signed the pardons into law in a ceremony in the capital Annapolis.
“This is a big deal. This is a really big deal.”
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cc: Punch Ng
