Colorado votes this Friday on whether to automatically clear cannabis records for 190,000 people. But Colorado isn’t the only state moving on expungement right now — it’s just the most urgent.
Across the country, a wave of expungement legislation is building. Some bills are days from a floor vote. Others are earlier in the process. But the cumulative picture is striking: states that have already legalized cannabis are increasingly recognizing that legalization without expungement is an incomplete job.
Here’s where five key states stand.
Colorado — Vote This Friday (190,000 Records)
The most time-sensitive bill is Colorado’s HB 26-1089. The House floor vote is scheduled for March 28, 2026 — this Friday. The bill would automatically seal and expunge all convictions for possession of up to two ounces of cannabis, with no petition required from individuals.
The bill cleared the House Judiciary Committee 7–4 on March 5 with bipartisan support. If it passes the full House on Friday and eventually reaches Governor Polis, an estimated 190,000 Coloradans would have their records cleared automatically.
Colorado legalized recreational cannabis in 2012. Fourteen years later, there are still nearly 200,000 people in the state with convictions for behavior that’s been legal for well over a decade.
New York — 400,000 Records, April 2 Vote Possible
New York has a related problem, and it’s even larger in scale. When the state legalized cannabis in 2021 through the MRTA, the law included an expungement mandate. Courts were supposed to automatically clear eligible records.
The problem: many courts haven’t done it. An estimated 400,000 cannabis convictions are still sitting in the system, uncleared, years after a law that was supposed to erase them automatically.
New York’s SB — the Cannabis Conviction Expungement Acceleration Act — passed the Senate Codes Committee 8–3 on March 10 and is awaiting a full Senate floor vote expected around April 2. The bill would set a hard 12-month deadline for courts to complete the expungements and add enforcement teeth to the existing mandate.
Four hundred thousand records. Legal mandate already in place. Still not done. The April vote is a chance to force the courts’ hand.
Florida — 800,000 Records, Vote in April
Florida’s SB 322, the Cannabis Expungement Expansion Act, is the largest bill in terms of potential impact. An estimated 800,000 Floridians have cannabis possession records that would be cleared under this bill — convictions for possession of up to one ounce.
The bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee 6–3 on March 5 and is headed for a full Senate floor vote with a date around April 22. If enacted, expungement proceedings would begin January 1, 2027.
Florida’s situation is particularly notable because the state passed a constitutional amendment legalizing medical cannabis in 2016 with over 71% support, and voters approved recreational legalization in 2024. The state has been moving toward cannabis normalization for years while 800,000 people still carry the weight of old convictions.
Ohio — 100,000+ Records, Bill in Committee
Ohio voters legalized recreational cannabis through Issue 2 in November 2023. Ohio adults can now legally possess the same amounts that people were previously convicted for possessing. But the state’s expungement process is still petition-based — meaning individuals have to navigate the courts on their own, at their own cost.
Ohio’s SB 197 would change that. The Cannabis Expungement Act would automatically seal and expunge convictions for amounts now legal under Issue 2, potentially clearing records for an estimated 100,000+ Ohioans. The bill was introduced in November 2025 and is currently in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The petition process that Ohio currently requires can cost hundreds of dollars and take months. For people who’ve been living with a conviction since before 2023 — the year the behavior became legal — that process is a barrier that automatic expungement would remove.
North Carolina — Bill Introduced, Uphill Path
North Carolina’s HB 413 would automatically expunge marijuana offense records going back to before January 1, 2026. The bill was introduced in the state House in April 2025 and referred to committee. North Carolina already decriminalizes first-offense possession under 14 grams as a fine-only violation, but the criminal record still exists.
North Carolina’s path is the hardest of the five — the state has no cannabis legalization program, and the legislative environment for cannabis reform is challenging. But the introduction of an automatic expungement bill signals that advocates are pushing the concept even in states that haven’t yet crossed the threshold to medical or recreational programs.
What Expungement Actually Does
It’s worth stepping back from the legislative details to explain what’s actually at stake for the individuals whose records these bills address.
A cannabis possession conviction — even a misdemeanor — creates a permanent public record that shows up on background checks. Landlords check. Employers check. Banks check when evaluating loan applications. State licensing boards check before issuing professional credentials. Federal housing assistance programs check.
The consequences are not abstract. People with cannabis convictions earn less over their lifetimes, access worse housing, and face compounding disadvantages that accumulate for years after the arrest and conviction. This is true even when the conviction is for conduct that is now completely legal.
Expungement doesn’t erase what happened, but it removes the conviction from public records and background checks. That apartment becomes available. That job application gets a fair review. That loan gets evaluated on creditworthiness rather than a decades-old misdemeanor.
The five states currently moving expungement legislation represent millions of eligible records — and millions of people whose futures look different depending on whether their legislators act.
The Bigger Picture
Taken together, these five state bills represent a recognition that legalization and expungement are not optional extras — they’re two parts of the same policy commitment. If a state decides that cannabis possession is no longer a crime, leaving convictions on the books is a policy choice that continues to harm people the state has already decided to stop punishing.
Colorado votes Friday. New York is weeks away. Florida is next month. Ohio and North Carolina are watching.
Track all of these bills and 158 active cannabis measures across all 50 states at cannabisinquirer.com/legislative-tracker/.
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