Colorado may be the mecca of legal marijuana, but the state’s old drug laws still loom large. More than 10,000 people in Denver alone were convicted of low-level cannabis crimes between 2001 and 2013.
Those offenses — such as possessing the drug or paraphernalia — would not be illegal today, but they still haunt many people’s criminal records.
Now, the city of Denver will help people to erase, or expunge, those records. Mayor Michael Hancock has ordered a “citywide effort” to remove low-level marijuana convictions from residents’ records.