Colorado governor pardons 1,351 people for minor marijuana crimes

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) announced on Thursday he has pardoned 1,351 people for minor marijuana possession crimes. 

Polis signed an executive order granting individuals pardons for their drug charges, also lifting three commutations and fifteen other individual pardons for prisoners, according to a statement. 

Earlier this year, Polis signed into law a bill that allows state residents over the age of 21 to legally possess up to two ounces of marijuana.

That law built on Amendment 64, which was legalized marijuana and passed in 2012, and another bill authorizing the governor to grant pardons to defendants convicted of possessing up to two ounces of marijuana, according to the statement. 

“Adults can legally possess marijuana in Colorado, just as they can beer or wine,” Polis said in the statement. “It’s unfair that 1,351 additional Coloradans had permanent blemishes on their record that interfered with employment, credit, and gun ownership, but today we have fixed that by pardoning their possession of small amounts of marijuana that occurred during the failed prohibition era.”

Polis also reduced the sentence of Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, the truck driver who was sentenced to 110 years in prison for killing four people in a 2019 motor vehicle accident, to 10 years in prison.