Montana courts report low curiosity in hashish file expungement following the legalization of adult-use hashish, Montana Public Radio reviews. Consequently, an extra court docket is not going to be created to deal with the additional caseload that was anticipated when lawmakers allotted funds for extra courts in final yr’s hashish laws.
Court docket Administrator Beth McLaughlin believes the native courts “ought to be capable to deal with” the caseload, explaining to MPR that her workplace is creating a type to assist with the expungement course of.
In 2020, Montana grew to become the primary state within the Excessive-Mountain West to legalize adult-use hashish by way of a voter-approved initiative. Montana’s Legislature crafted a regulatory invoice in 2021, resulting in the launch of statewide gross sales on January 1, 2022. The state reported $1.5 million in gross sales on the primary weekend of authorized gross sales to adults.
In the meantime, a report final February discovered that Montana had the very best state-wide disparity for hashish arrests between Black folks and white folks, regardless of proof exhibiting that Black adults and white adults use hashish at statistically comparable charges. Utilizing information from the Individuals for Civil Liberties Union from 2010 to 2018, the report discovered that Black Montanans have been 9.6 occasions extra prone to be arrested for hashish possession than their white counterparts — far above the nationwide common disparity charge of three.8.
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