Last fall there were several new states that voted in favor of medicinal or recreational legalization for marijuana.
After voters headed out, we saw that AZ, NJ, SD, MT, and MS, they all decided to make cannabis changes.
Now there are millions more who will be getting access to legalization for cannabis and for some that meant it would only take a few months. There are still several states that are without legalization and that means they enforce heavy criminalization of this plant and prisons are still full of non-violent offenders.
There are areas in the United States that still put people in jail just for a joint.
Some of those regions with outdated cannabis laws are areas like Florida, Texas, New York, Alabama, Georgia, and other regions. Despite their backwards ways and affinity to continue to police cannabis and people's personal choices, there are a growing number of states that want to legalize it so that they can tax it excessively and make a lot of money off of it.
Already, areas like Washington, Colorado, and Alaska, they've been able to make tens of billions from their cannabis markets.
One more area that still has yet to legalize is Virgina.
A senate panel in Virginia recently endorsed the idea of marijuana legalization for possession by summer of this year. But even though they make formal moves to bring in a legal market at that time it could still be months or years away from happening.
There is a bill pending that could change things.
In most cases we see it take at least a year or two, but then there are regions like AZ that did it only in a few months and they made history by doing that.
Right now, lawmakers in Virginia are debating how they are going to frame cannabis legalization and exert their control over the market.
It could still be years away before that region gets a full legal market, they still want to establish an independent agency to oversee the cannabis industry before making any formal plans. If they go through with their plans then that could mean that thousands more will get records expunged who arguably never should have had a record given to them in the first place.
Pics:
pixabay