Minnesota Senators Approve Bill To Expand Marijuana-Related Expungement And Resentencing

A legislative committee in Minnesota has given approval to a plan that would expand eligibility for expungement of marijuana-related criminal records and resentencing.

Lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee voted at a hearing on Wednesday to advance the proposal, which would allow anyone with a first-degree through fifth-degree controlled substance crime related to cannabis or THC to seek expungement and resentencing.

Committee members reported SB 204 favorably on a unanimous voice vote after first adopting an amendment from the author, Sen. Lindsey Port (DFL), who was not present at the hearing. It next proceeds to the Senate floor.

The measure is necessary in order for the state Cannabis Expungement Board (CEB), which reviews felony-level cannabis cases, to have authority to evaluate matters that were “unintentionally missed” when Minnesota legalized marijuana for adults in 2023, explained Sen. Clare Oumou Verbeten (DFL).

“Oversights in this legislation, and a decision by the courts, resulted in the board not being able to review many cases that the legislature did intend,” Oumou Verbeten explained. “This legislation is just trying to resolve those issues.”

Misdemeanor cases, meanwhile, are eligible for automatic expungement under state cannabis law.

The amendment, Oumou Verbeten continued, will “capture some cannabis offenses that were unintentionally missed in the drafting of the original legislation,” for example multi-count cases and historical cases that aren’t currently eligible for expungement or resentencing.

Testifying in support of the bill were two top CEB officials, including Mark Haase, the board’s deputy director and general counsel.

“What the language in this bill does is—and we’ve worked with court administration to get language that they said works for them administratively—is if the other counts were dismissed, or the other counts are eligible under the automatic cannabis expungement statute for misdemeanors, then we would be able to seal that entire record,” Haase told lawmakers.

Offenses would only be eligible for relief if they did not involve dangerous weapons or intentional bodily harm.

As some observers noted, sending SF 204 directly to the Senate floor could speed its passage and adoption, allowing it to take effect later this spring. As written, the measure would become law a day after its final enactment.

A companion bill, HF 1094, has been filed in the House by Rep. Athena Hollins (DFL).

Separately at Wednesday’s hearing, the panel advanced a plan that would repeal Minnesota’s illegal drugs tax-stamp law. That bill, SF 209, from Oumou Verbeten, next goes to Senate Taxes Committee.

That measure would undo an ’80s-era law that requires drug dealers to buy stamps indicating the payment of taxes on various illegal substances. The tax stamps raise hardly any money for the state, and most reportedly comes from people who buy them as collectors items.

While the tax stamp law is occasionally used in prosecutions against drug dealers, sponsors have noted that county prosecutors at the Minnesota County Attorneys Association have no position on the repeal.

Meanwhile in Minnesota, local officials and cannabis businesses are concerned about details in state compacts with tribal nations that could allow the entities to sell marijuana legally outside of their reservations.

Earlier this year, a separate government report on chronic pain patients said that participants in the state’s medical marijuana program “are finding a noticeable change in pain relief” within a few months of starting treatment.

In other drug policy developments, a state task force charged with making psychedelics-related policy recommendations also recently sent a report to lawmakers last week calling on the legislature to decriminalize the use and possession of personal-use amounts of psilocybin mushrooms as well as establish a state-regulated program for legal therapeutic access.

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Photo courtesy of M a n u e l.