Nevadans convicted of felony possession and sale of marijuana could be pardoned if Senator Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas gets his way. In 2015, he will introduce a bill that requires the state to pardon convictions against medical marijuana cardholders in his state. The United States has the largest prison population of any country in the world, and the Nevada Senator believes that many medical marijuana cardholders essentially were tricked into becoming criminals because of a confusing law. This is something many Michigan Medical Marijuana Cardholders are all too familiar with.
Nevada has had a medical marijuana law for over a decade, but patients had no protections under the law when it came to acquiring their medicine. The bill was mired with contradictory language and was interpreted poorly by the courts. For example, patients were allowed to grow plants, but it was illegal to acquire seeds. Patients could possess marijuana, but were not allowed to give it to another patient. Does this sound familiar?
Because of these unnecessary hurdles, patients took the logical and compassionate step of creating cooperative growing agreements, accepting donations in exchange for medical marijuana. This process was later deemed illegal by the courts.
Medical Marijuana patients in Nevada operated under a confusing law and with the courts’ unfavorable interpretations and rulings, were turned into a new class of criminals. But Senator Segerblom wants to right some of those wrongs by pardoning individuals who unknowingly broke the law and got slapped with felony convictions.
“There will be a process where you can come back to court, and if you have a medical marijuana card and you have some kind of criminal record, there would be a process where you could have that removed,” he said.
I have long advocated for a similar bill in Michigan, and I am happy to see that some of our elected officials are finally taking notice that medical marijuana patients are not criminals. It is my hope that a similar bill is introduced in Michigan so that we can fight true crime, rather than put our time, energy and resources into creating a new class of criminals.
