if marijuana is legalized...

i'm familiar with ex post facto laws, in that a person who committed a "crime" prior to the creation of a law against it can't be punished for it.

But i'm curious - if marijuana were to be legalized, would people convicted on grounds of possession/distribution/production be released/cleared/compensated? Or would they have to sit in jail while the rest of us are legally blazing it out here?

i guess the question underlying that one is whether or not there exists some sort of reverse-ex post facto law that can acquit people?

They'd probably be released if they were convincted of only non-violent crimes. If their drug offenses also involved violence (or lieing to the police, etc.), however, they'd probably be locked up still.

They will be charged and tried according to the law at the time of their arrest, so say like, you get busted today with pot , and they legalized next week, youll probably be charged, unless you had a small ammount on you, but say the charge was trafficking, or something along that lines, expect jail time stil.

they will still be locked up, only way if u got busted the night before and went to jail but didnt have ur inital apperance or preliminary hearing yet, be4 it was leaglelized but if you had ur IA or Ph and the bill got passed the next day you'd still be charged.