LEGALIZATION BILL WOULD WIPE SLATE CLEAN FOR SOME PAST OFFENDERS

ANNAPOLIS – When Diamonte Brown was 26 years old, she was pulled over for an unlit tag light and arrested when a police officer found a small amount of marijuana in her car, Brown said, stuffed inside a balled up pair of gloves in her passenger’s purse.

Brown was a few years away from obtaining her master’s degree in secondary education. The arrest, which never evolved into a conviction, would later halt her search for a teaching job when a Baltimore City school told her that a background search turned up the arrest record, making her ineligible to work or volunteer there.

A handful of lawmakers are now fighting for legislation that would downgrade the type of offense Brown was charged with from a criminal to a civil transgression, close in penalty to a parking ticket. Another group of legislators, led by Sen. Jamie Raskin, D-Montgomery, is pushing to legalize marijuana for people 21 and older in the state, similar to what lawmakers in Colorado and Washington have done.
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