This disclosure provides techniques for reducing leakage current in a non-volatile memory that does not include a local interconnect. In one example, a low-voltage pulse can be applied to all of the word-lines in all of the blocks of the non-volatile memory. The low-voltage pulse can be applied during a period in which the row decoder is typically idle in order to reduce the total amount of time required to program the non-volatile memory. After the conclusion low-voltage pulse, a global control line voltage can be applied at about the same level as the low-voltage pulse to keep the word-lines floating when the pulse is no longer applied.