How Do You Clear a Pot Conviction From Your Record?

E ddy, a burly 65-year-old professional musician, walked into a free legal clinic in Los Angeles County one July morning hoping to clear his record. More than three decades ago, he served two years probation for attempting to sell a few gram bags of marijuana, a felony that put the immigrant, a legal U.S. resident with a green card, at greater risk of deportation.

Thanks to Proposition 64, the California ballot initiative that legalized the recreational use of marijuana last November, Eddy has a chance for a clean slate. Under one provision of the law, many people with pot-related convictions can apply to have them reduced to lesser offenses or expunged, the legal term for having a case dismissed.

Eddy was one of several dozen people, mostly Latinos and African-Americans, who attended the legal clinic at Chuco’s Justice Center, a graffiti-covered community center in the small city of Inglewood, which borders Los Angeles International Airport. Staffed by volunteers from the national drug reform nonprofit, Drug Policy Alliance, and lawyers from the Los Angeles County public defender’s office, the clinic was one in an ongoing series of events held in recent months to help people get convictions reduced or dismissed.

A little, the policy-making arm of the state courts.