J.B. Pritzker granted tens of thousands of pardons for people convicted of low-level marijuana-related offenses on Tuesday. State officials estimate that 116,000 convictions involving 30 grams or less of marijuana, including for possession of the drug, are eligible for pardons under the new law. Illinois State Police are responsible for identifying those convictions and sending the records to the state’s Prisoner Review Board, which then forwarded eligible cases to the governor’s office for pardons. “We are ending the 50-year-long war on cannabis,” Pritzker said in a statement. “We know that Black Illinois residents are far more likely to be arrested and convicted for marijuana possession than whites,” said Ben Ruddell, criminal justice policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.

Source: Fox News January 01, 2020 01:18 UTC