Democratic Party of New Mexico Celebrates President Biden’s Mass Pardon for Marijuana Convictions
The Democratic Party of New Mexico is celebrating President Biden’s Thursday announcement of a pardon of all prior Federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana. President Biden is also urging all Governors to do the same for state-level offenses.
“Far too many well-intentioned people have had their lives upended for being caught with a small amount of marijuana. Countless marijuana arrests were the result of prejudicial racial and socioeconomic targeting,” said Democratic Party of New Mexico Executive Director Sean Ward. “An arrest for a small amount of marijuana should never ruin someone’s life. The Democratic Party of New Mexico is proud of the President for taking a major step toward putting an end to ending discriminatory mass incarceration practices that have disproportionately targeted communities of color and perpetuated the injustices of the failed “war on drugs.”
The Democratic Party of New Mexico already included criminal justice reform, especially as it relates to drug reform policy, on their platform. As DPNM’s platform states, we are committed to:
Encourage the federal government to remove “marijuana” from the list of Schedule I federally controlled substances and to appropriately regulate cannabis, providing a reasonable pathway for future legalization; and
Continue to pursue the expungement of criminal records for those with solely nonviolent, personal cannabis use and possession charges.
DPNM is also proud of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s 2021 expungement of simple cannabis convictions from criminal records and her leadership alongside the Democratic state legislature in decriminalizing recreational cannabis use.
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham wrote in a statement Thursday, “Similar to New Mexico’s expungement of cannabis offenses, President Biden today announced critical steps toward righting the wrongs of a failed war on drugs and fixing a system that has too often placed an undue burden on people of color.”
