In an effort to put pressure on President Joe Biden to provide more relief to people with federal marijuana convictions, activists on Tuesday announced a campaign for the president to “fulfill his commitment to cannabis justice by granting clemency to thousands of individuals.”
The so-called Countdown for Clemency project, organized by the advocacy group Last Prisoner Project (LPP) and other partners, is urging Biden to release what the groups say are nearly 3,000 people still incarcerated on federal cannabis offenses.
Despite Biden having issued two rounds of mass cannabis pardons for people with federal possession convictions on their records, those actions did not release anyone from prison.
“Time is running out on President Biden’s term, but it is not too late for him to undo the harms inflicted on families impacted by cannabis criminalization,” LPP Executive Director Sarah Gersten said in a statement about the new initiative. “With his clemency powers, the President has the opportunity to right history and restore justice by fulfilling his promise that no one should be in jail for cannabis.”
A large countdown clock on the newly launched Countdown for Cannabis Clemency website ticks down the remaining time before Biden’s term ends and he loses the ability to grant relief to people with marijuana convictions.
LPP and others point out that on the campaign trail, Biden said that marijuana should be decriminalized and that “everybody should be out of jail, their records expunged” for past cannabis conduct.
“His pardons were insufficient to fulfill these words,” the new website says, “but he can still take further actions by releasing individuals via commutations.”
The clemency campaign points to recent polls showing that 84 percent of voters support releasing people serving time for now-legal offenses, although cannabis remains illegal at the federal level. A separate poll, however, showed that 72 percent of people supported Biden’s past pardons of non-violent marijuana possession convictions.
The Countdown for Clemency press release notes that Biden in general has granted just 1.6 percent of all clemency petitions received during his presidency.
“As President Biden enters a ‘lame duck’ period with less than five months in office, he has a unique opportunity to correct the injustices of the War on Drugs that he previously championed,” LPP said. “The campaign highlights that despite the President’s categorical pardons, no one has yet been released from prison for cannabis through commutations under his administration.”
Others who’ve received cannabis-related pardons have similarly spoken out, calling for broader relief for people still in federal custody.
“While I applaud President Biden for pardoning individuals like my friend Jason Hernandez, who undoubtedly deserve a second chance, I am deeply disappointed that he continues to overlook those incarcerated on federal marijuana charges,” Weldon Angelos, who received a presidential pardon under the Trump administration for his own cannabis case, told Marijuana Moment earlier this year.
“Over half the country has legalized marijuana, and even the president agrees that it should be rescheduled,” he said. “Yet, he does not see the urgency in releasing those who are unjustly imprisoned for marijuana offenses—many of whom would not be prosecuted today.”
In March, meanwhile, 36 members of Congress implored Biden to grant clemency to all Americans currently in federal prison over non-violent cannabis convictions by commuting their sentences, pointing out that the pardons he’s issued to date for simple possession cases did not release a single person from incarceration.
Biden has thus far indicated that he’s uninterested in expanding his marijuana clemency efforts beyond people who’ve faced convictions for use or simple possession, however. At a campaign stop in Wisconsin earlier this year, for example, he said that “if you’re out selling it, if you’re out growing, it’s a different deal.”
But as the election approaches, it’s clear that the administration recognizes the popularity of cannabis policy reform. Both Biden and Harris touted their reform actions at exactly 4:20pm ET on the cannabis holiday of April 20, for example.
The president also discussed the marijuana actions in a historic context during his State of the Union address this year.
Harris, meanwhile, separately urged DEA to finish its review and reschedule marijuana “as quickly as possible” while meeting pardon recipients for a roundtable event at the White House last month. Behind closed doors, she’s also said “we need to legalize marijuana.”
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In an effort to put pressure on President Joe Biden to provide more relief to people with federal marijuana convictions, activists on Tuesday announced a campaign for the president to “fulfill his commitment to cannabis justice by granting clemency to thousands of individuals.” The so-called Countdown for Clemency project, organized by the advocacy group Last Read More