Righting the wrongs of America's "War on Drugs."

L.A. County District Attorney George Gascón has announced that 58,000 cannabis convictions were to be dismissed in a move to address the "injustices of drug laws further". Gascón was a co-author of Proposition 64 and had previously worked to erase many people's cannabis criminal history in San Francisco. L.A. County expunged about 66,000 convictions related to cannabis last year. According to D.A.'s office, more than 120,000 cannabis cases are being dismissed nationally. When Proposition 64 was passed in California in 2016, The law created the state's recreational cannabis market whilst allowing for the resentencing or dismissal and sealing of past cannabis offences. The expungement of past convictions is an essential step following widespread medical and adult-use cannabis legalisation. The state of California has the largest cannabis market in the USA, generating $4.6 billion in annual sales. Still illegal federally, 18 states have legalised adult-use cannabis, and 36 have legalised medicinal use. In 2020 the legal U.S. cannabis industry reached about $20 billion in sales, with the sector estimated to top $100 billion annually by 2030. New York, which passed legal adult recreational use in March of this year, is automatically erasing sentences for prior marijuana crimes. Officials in New Jersey and Illinois have also deleted hundreds of thousands of cannabis-related convictions. They are no longer considered a crime under legalisation. Taking things a step further, a draft bill to remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act was released in July. The proposed "Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act" is designed to spark debate before the final legislative text is written in the autumn. The senators involved propose in their draft bill the immediate expungement of nonviolent federal cannabis crimes. If successful, the bill would remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act and legalise it federally. If successfully passed, those serving sentences in federal prison for nonviolent cannabis offences would have the right to petition a court for resentencing. The bill also incorporates other social-justice measures. The Government would reinvest a percentage of the revenue generated through federal cannabis taxes back into the communities that have been heavily impacted by the "War on Drugs". Support would also be offered to cannabis entrepreneurs from all disadvantaged backgrounds, both socially and economically. "The Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act will ensure that Americans—especially Black and Brown Americans—no longer have to fear arrest or be barred from public housing or federal financial aid for higher education for using cannabis in states where it's legal," -excerpt from draft bill. It is uncertain whether a bill such as this has enough support to be passed in the senate. However, it is a step in the right direction regarding federal legalisation and righting the wrongs of social injustices past. The fact that individual states have begun to address convictions within their jurisdiction is an excellent way to put pressure on the federal system to change.