Oakland councilwoman calls on state to expunge pot crime records

Oakland City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan is calling on the state to expunge all marijuana-related criminal records, a move that she says will open the door for people of color who’ve tradtionally been shut out of a multibillion dollar cannabis industry.

Kaplan has authored a resolution, which goes before its first council committee on Thursday, and may be the next political maneuver by a city intent on correcting the racial injustices of the U.S. war on drugs.

On Tuesday, the council unanimously approved new marijuana laws that included a controversial equity program that supporters say will help right some of the wrongs but that critics say will cause the city’s pot trade to sputter.

Residents who have lived for at least two years in a designated police beat in East Oakland where marijuana arrests were highly concentrated in 2013, or individuals who were incarcerated for marijuana-related crimes in Oakland over the past decade.

Opponents of the program say it will create huge backlogs on permits because the rules stipulate that the city must award at least one equity permit for each general permit.

“We know this is about those who have been arrested and impacted by the drug war, but it’s also about those of us who have taken the immense risk of opening businesses,” Unsworth told the council.

“The war on drugs has criminalized black and brown communities, and now that (marijuana) is becoming legalized there’s a whole line of white men that are about to get rich,” said a speaker named George Galvis.

A spokeswoman for the state’s newly-formed Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation said she thinks the decision about whether to toss records will be left to the courts.