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Illinois to allow recreational marijuana

Posted by / June 26, 2019

The governor of Illinois has signed into a law a bill making marijuana legal for recreational use. That law also means that nearly 800,000 people with criminal records for possession of 30 grams of marijuana or less could have those records expunged. Residents can now purchase one gram of pot at a time, while non-residents can purchase 15 grams at a time.

Illinois is now the 11th state that has legalized recreational marijuana use, causing a change in other laws. In 2020, employers in the state of Nevada will no longer be able to refuse to hire potential employees based solely on a failed marijuana drug test. Other states have taken similar measures. Seattle judges recently opted to clear past marijuana misdemeanor convictions. This decision could affect 542 people who have been convicted of crimes between 1996 and 2010. Other cities and states are considering similar plans, making Seattle one of the first dominos to fall in an inevitable shift in the criminal justice system. California and New York have both opted to erase old drug convictions, and New York has ceased marijuana-related arrests.

Legal weed is also having economic impacts. The Canadian cannabis company Tilray has ballooned over five-hundred percent in one month, and it is now larger than a whopping forty-five percent of stocks on the S&P 500. That’s bigger than companies like Coors, Chipotle, and Macy’s.

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