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Has anyone advocated, in states where the war on drugs is receding, retroactively sealing (and banning discrimination based) nonviolent drug offenders' records?

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Yes, although advocacy has been much broader than that. It's generally called, "Ban the Box," (for the checkbox asking about recent felony convictions you often see on job applications).

Perhaps it would be more successful if it were more targeted. That's an interesting thought.

No, "ban the box" is not about sealing records, or even prohibiting background checks, it simply is about prohibiting "have you ever been convicted of a crime?" (which is not restricted to either recent or felony convictions) as a front-end filtering question.

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