Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed HB 1438 in June, rendering weed legal for people 21 and over in the state, along with major criminal justice changes designed to help those whose lives have been changed by the drug laws of the state.

In addition to legalizing marijuana, according to the Marijuana Policy Alliance, the 610-page bill provides redress to the nearly 770,000 state residents with cannabis-related offenses on their criminal records.

The proposed Marijuana Control and Tax Act, which comes into force in 2020, allows individuals to seek conditional clemency on sentences possessing up to 30 grams of marijuana. Those charged of larger amounts will ask a judge for the penalty to be removed from 30-500 grams.

The legislation describes expunge as “physically removing or restoring the documents to the petitioner and obliterating the name of the petitioner from any legal registry or public domain, or both.” But it does not involve the complete annihilation of circuit court archives.

The legislation also provides a “social equity plan,” which makes it easier to secure business licenses for those with drug convictions. The initiative frequently allocates $12 million for drug-related start-ups as well as grants for job training programs in the cannabis industry of the state, notes the Marijuana Policy Project.

The State Department of Agriculture and its community college board are developing pilot programs to get citizens ready to work in the newly-legal industry, and the state would allow them to concentrate on enrolling low-income students in those initiatives.