Oregon, which as of July 1 has made it legal for adults to possess and use recreational marijuana, is going further than just decriminalization the drug and is now actually expunging marijuana violations from records.

In allowing for the expunging of low-level felonies and misdemeanors related to pot possession, the state is offering a genuine solution to the legal issues that hang over consumers of cannabis that had the misfortune of being caught with the drug before it was decriminalized.

As reported in the New York Times, Jenny M. Roberts, a law professor at American University in Washington, D.C., said, “Oregon is one of the first states to really grapple with the issue of what do you do with a record of something that used to be a crime and no longer is.”

Leland R. Berger, an attorney who specializes in marijuana law and practices in Portland, remarked that: “In criminal law reform on marijuana, Oregon has gone further than anyone else.”

In California, where the drug was decriminalized for medical purposes, the law regarding past pot offences still stands between pot-lovers and their product.

As the Mint Press News reports Californian patients who would like a license to get medical marijuana are required to have no felony convictions. This, of course, means no violations for distributing marijuana.

Erika Walton, an Oregon woman who was once fined for handing a bong to a person who turned out be a police officer, spoke to the Times about how the violation had affected her life.

Having to reveal the offence on job applications and even for volunteer positions, she says, had “taken away a lot” of her life. Now, after filling out some simple paperwork, she is happy to know that her past violation to law that in Oregon no longer exists, has been sealed.