Cannabis Users Are Getting Their Criminal Records Expunged. What About The Dealers?

Look, I’ve got to get this out there because I think we all relate to this article in some way or another. Whether you are actively involved in the cannabis movement or just a toking observer, we have mostly all heard or seen the redemption efforts on behalf of the states and cities. I am talking about the pardons and the expungements of records of thousands of Americans. States like California, Illinois, Nevada and cities such as Seattle, San Francisco, and San Diego have been actively participating in clearing records. The list keeps going on. It is a hopeful time for users that have past drug possession convictions, but what about the forgotten supplier? You know! The person that gave the weed to the person that then got arrested with it!? America started a war on drugs that targeted both users and suppliers. Both users and suppliers went to jail, for long periods of time in some circumstances. Both users and suppliers were publicly shamed, discriminated against and suffered through these vicious cyclical systems that society and the government created. So shouldn’t the redemption efforts tailor to both users and suppliers? And if not, why is this idea just out of the equation?

It is an attempted righting of a wrong, it is a public apology, a “we fucked up” recognition and more. Where it gets tricky is since the trend is bound to continue, we are seeing the war on drugs diminish and at the same time more drugs continuing on the road to legalization or decriminalization. A perfect example is psilocybin mushrooms and the very early road they have started on that has a very similar scent to how the cannabis industry evolved. Let’s say that psilocybin is implemented in the US as a legitimate market, are States and Cities going to retroactively expunge records of people that were arrested for possession of psilocybin mushrooms? Additionally, we are seeing drugs today like MDMA being fast-tracked by the FDA and it begs some to question, can that too be in the race of drugs on the road to being legalized and profited from? Well, you may see where I am going with this.  Let’s say that one day in the future the war on drugs is declared over and suddenly everyone that has a drug possession charge is in the running to get it expunged, forgiven and forgotten. How are we going to discriminate against the drug dealers, that supplied the same drugs that would be newly adopted, and their records, when everyone they supplied is walking freely without being shackled to their past criminal records? Both users and suppliers get criminal records, both are considered criminals. The law shouldn’t hold any one offense over another.

 Trust me, I get it. I am crazy for talking like this because usually when people think about drug dealers, we think of scummy people that see people as dollar signs and are not worried about what they have to risk to convert those people into dollars. But let’s get real, the people selling bud now are everyday people. The people supplying today are NOT the same people that were supplying 20 or 30 years ago.  Even the school nerds now are plugged in through the internet and are supplying mad flower. With the world so connected, everyone has a connect to a supplier. The unsuspected person is the very person that is supplying the whole community. It is common to see users transition into suppliers. Why is this? Well, we as users are consuming to self-heal. Self-healing can be super expensive and to supplement for that, users supply to their close friends to either decrease the amount they spend on consumption or to get it entirely for free. But weren’t we all taught that sharing is caring? In this case, sharing is apparently unexpungeable.

Let’s face it, the war on drugs has affected SO MANY OF US on so many different levels. We, the people, have lost our loved ones to death, to jail, to the streets during this war on drugs that has somehow assaulted more Americans, than it hasn’t. Creating the black market for drugs and then declaring a domestic war on Americans operating in the black market, user and supplier, has been one of the biggest catastrophes in history. Notice how I included user and supplier in the last sentence. That is because there was harsh penalties for both sides during the war on drugs. Both sides were affected. But you don’t have one without the other in the black market. There are no users if there are no suppliers. So where is our thinking when it comes to forgiveness and expunging records? Are we going to expunge the records of people that were involved with the particular drugs that we eventually build a legal market for? Are we going to give a hard look at expunging all drug possession convictions? If that ultimately happens, I have to say it is wrong to right the wrongs for the users and not the suppliers. At least take it on as a case by case basis and leave the possibility open. Or what if there was an open application process to go through?

Whatever it is, I feel that it really needs to feel like true justice. We have Americans legally selling weed and making millions of dollars doing so, while also having Americans in jail for selling weed and it’s costing America millions. Some of the best cannabis medicine growers are incarcerated for doing what outsiders are doing legally, today. That doesn’t feel like true justice. It doesn’t feel like inclusion, or equal or fair. In fact, the war on drugs has choked inclusion, equality and fairness out of our society and left us with this disaster to rectify.