California voters made the decision to legalize the recreational use of marijuana by passing Proposition 64 in 2016. Two years later, we would come to recognize this as the first step to righting some of the wrongs of our criminal justice system.

The legalization of weed is a multifaceted issue. Topics like the rate of taxation and the processes people go through to obtain weed legally have all come up, naturally. However, one of the most discussed issues to come from this unprecedented decision is the retroactive freeing of people imprisoned for possession of the substance. To no one’s surprise, the people spearheading this movement are none other than San Franciscans. San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón said Wednesday that the plan is to make the new marijuana laws applicable to thousands of felony and misdemeanor cases that would result in the expunging or reduction of sentences.

According to Gascón, he and his office plan to examine cases dating all the way back to 1975.

This would give people another chance at having a better life. They’d have an easier time finding jobs and honestly, we’re all for that. The reason a lot of these people were put away in the first place was the implementation of racist and misguided drug laws, this is the least we can do to make up for imprisoning many of these non-violent offenders.

What would be even better is to see other states and regions follow suit, though we may be putting the cart before the horse.

An argument people keep making is along the lines of “Well, it was illegal then. They must’ve made a law like that for a reason.” Well, laws fade in and out of popularity often due to how ridiculous they end up being in the context of a new society. If laws were always in place for the right reasons, slavery would be legal, bathhouses would be illegal and women wouldn’t be able to drive around in house coats in California.