Here’s a question that is now popping up in the places where marijuana is now fully legal: How do you handle people who were convicted of possessing marijuana back before it was legal?

Or to put it another way, is a crime still a crime when the activity that was a crime is now legal?

Leave it to Oregon to come up with an answer.

As The New York Times notes:

Oregon was not the first state to legalize recreational marijuana, which happened through a state ballot vote last November, nor is it the largest. But in preparing to begin retail marijuana sales next month, it is nonetheless blazing a profoundly new trail, legal experts and marijuana business people 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,” said Jenny M. Roberts, a professor of law at American University in Washington, D.C., who specializes in criminal law and sentencing.”

As anyone who has had to fill out an application for a job knows, those boxes that you are required to check if you have been arrested or convicted of a crime can pretty much kill your chance of actually getting hired. Although many states and municipalities are banning those boxes on applications, Oregon has taken the process one step farther.

As The Times also reports:

(Oregon’s) state law, not restricted to drug offenses, that allows anyone with a lowest-level felony, misdemeanor or non traffic violation to wipe the slate clean if 10 years or longer has gone by without another conviction. Starting next year, more serious felony marijuana convictions of the past, like manufacturing, will be eligible for record sealing as well. …

One new law specifically says courts must use the standards of current law — under which possessing, growing and selling marijuana are all legal — in considering records-clearing applications. The other (new law) allows faster record-clearing for people who were under 21 at the time of a past conviction”

I’ve said this before but it bears repeating: States where marijuana legalization is new or just starting to take shape need to look to the more “mature” legal cannabis markets — and that’s an oxymoron to be sure — for best practices they can apply to their own states.

We can’t keep reinventing the wheel every time a new state dips its toe into the legal marijuana market, and there is a lot they can learn and model from what leaders like Oregon and Colorado are doing.

Of course, they can also learn what not to do by looking at places like the state of Washington and the troubles they have had that so many up there are now trying to reform.

But the point is the same: learning the good and the bad from what other states are doing makes sense, and there is no reason why the newer kids on the block can’t get a little schooling from what their older, wiser, peers have had to go through.

And, it’s not just about best practices but about smart business practices as well. The states where marijuana really succeeds will be the ones where the politicians are disciplined enough to put their egos aside and are willing to learn a little from somebody else.