Well, that time has come, starting in San Francisco! According to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco will retroactively apply California's new recreational marijuana laws to criminal cases of the past.

The legalization of recreational marijuana through the California's Proposition 64 included a provision that people who had been convicted of weed crimes that would not be a crime under Proposition 64 could petition to the courts to either re-review or dismiss their crimes, as we reported last year.

District Attorney George Gascón confirmed this week that his office won't bother with petitions. Instead, he has directed prosecutors to simply erase any old convictions that would be thrown out upon re-review. Gascón argued that forcing people to petition failed to help the economically disadvantaged, noting that legal fees from petitions could total several hundred dollars.

The district attorney office is expected dismiss over 3,000 misdemeanor convictions going all the way back to 1975. The office will also revisit and offer new sentences for thousands of felony marijuana cases.

The plan is especially beneficial for people of color, who are disproportionately convicted for marijuana-based crimes.

According to a 2013 ACLU study, African Americans were more than twice as likely to be convicted of weed crimes compared to whites. In San Francisco, African Americans were four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites.