Source: Associated Press

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said Monday his office would dismiss roughly 60,000 marijuana convictions.

Under the previous DA, Jackie Lacey, the office moved last year to dump 66,000 pot convictions that took place before voters passed Proposition 64, the state law legalizing recreational cannabis use.

The Los Angeles Times reports Lacey’s list was compiled using information collected by the California Department of Justice, and Gascón said his office was able to identify tens of thousands more eligible cases by combing LA County court records.

“Dismissing these convictions means the possibility of a better future to thousands of disenfranchised people who are receiving this long-needed relief,” Gascón said in a statement. “It clears the path for them to find jobs, housing and other services that previously were denied to them because of unjust cannabis laws.”

Gascón has long championed efforts to reverse what he sees as the racially disparate and overly punitive effects of the nation’s war on drugs.

While serving as San Francisco’s top prosecutor, he sought the dismissal of nearly 9,000 felony and misdemeanor marijuana convictions that were processed before the passage of Prop. 64, the Times said.