36 US House Democrats Urge Biden to Grant Cannabis Clemency For Thousands

Three dozen U.S. House Democrats are asking President Joe Biden to put his money where his mouth is on cannabis justice reform.

Congressional Cannabis Caucus co-chair Reps. Barbara Lee, Calif., and Earl Blumenauer, Ore., along with 34 of their colleagues in the lower chamber, sent a letter (below) March 13 to Biden urging him to grant clemency to the “many individuals” currently incarcerated in federal prison for nonviolent cannabis offenses.

“The continued incarceration of these individuals continues the racist legacy of the war on drugs, contradicts the current societal and legal trends regarding marijuana, and represents an unnecessary burden on our morals and justice system,” the representatives wrote. They added, “You have a unique ability to lead on criminal justice reform and provide immediate relief to thousands of Americans.”

While Biden has continued to hold the position that “no one should be jailed for using or possessing marijuana,” as he most recently said during his March 7 State of the Union (SOTU) address, he has yet to live up to this campaign promise that he’s repeated time and time again during his time in the White House.

Biden first used his clemency powers in April 2022, when he commuted the sentences for 75 people serving time for nonviolent drug offenses. At least eight of the commutations dealt with cannabis-related offenses. But these eight individuals were already released from custody or had been on supervised release.

Biden has also issued multiple rounds of pardons, including for those with cannabis-related convictions, but these pardons have not translated to the release of individuals currently serving time in federal prison, according to cannabis justice reform advocate Weldon Angelos, founder of Mission [Green], a presidential pardon recipient who served 13 years of a 55-year sentence.

Following Biden’s SOTU, Angelos said on social media that nobody goes to jail for cannabis use or simple possession.

“But those imprisoned federally for marijuana felonies shouldn’t be forced to serve out the remainder of their decades long sentences either, so please commute their sentences as you promised when you were running for president,” Angelos wrote.

The 36 U.S. House members echoed this position in their March 13 letter.

“Unfortunately, none of the previous pardons released a single person from federal prison for marijuana offenses,” the House members wrote. “Federal courts sentence only a couple hundred simple marijuana possession cases each year, and no one sentenced for simple possession is in federal prison. The general pardon also failed to provide much relief to those haunted by criminal records—the bulk of federal marijuana cases involve felony offenses, which, unlike the misdemeanors you pardoned, impose serious civil disabilities (e.g., disenfranchisement) and crippling collateral consequences (e.g., barriers to employment, housing, and education).”

The lawmakers cited a U.S. Sentencing Commission report that states, as of January 2022, no offenders sentenced solely for simple possession of cannabis remained in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Biden also made a campaign promise to decriminalize cannabis. While he directed in October 2022 his Cabinet to review cannabis’ classification under the Controlled Substances Act, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is still reviewing an official recommendation that the plant be relisted from Schedule I to Schedule III.

In the meantime, racial disparities persist in cannabis-related arrests, with Black people roughly four times more likely than white people to be arrested for possession in the U.S., despite similar usage rates, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

“For decades, unfair cannabis policies have led to unjust incarcerations and worsened racial disparities in the criminal justice system, with people of color representing a disproportionate rate of marijuana arrests,” the representatives wrote in the March 13 letter. “The continuation of the outdated cannabis prohibition would represent a miscarriage of justice impacting all Americans.”

Notably, federal cannabis prohibition comes at a time when 70% of Americans support legalizing the plant, according to Gallup pollsters, and 24 states have legalized adult-use cannabis for those 21 and older.

The 36 House members also identified two specific individuals in who remain incarcerated as a result of the drug war:

• Jerry Haymon is a 30-year-old Black man from Clovis, Calif., who received a mandatory 10-year sentence for cannabis distribution. Haymon was a two-way football star in high school who went on to play defensive back in college, where he was majoring in economics (and even made the dean’s list one semester). Prior to his arrest in 2017, Haymon was looking to try out for professional football. At sentencing, the trial judge regretfully noted that his hands were tied by federal mandatory minimum prison terms for marijuana.
• Danny Trevino is a 51-year-old Hispanic American businessman and father of three, who is currently serving a 15 1/2-year sentence for owning and operating a Michigan cannabis dispensary under that state’s medical marijuana laws. Federal drug enforcement waited to charge the case until the “Cole Memo” was rescinded in 2018, which led to Trevino’s conviction and imprisonment despite the legal murkiness around federal and state cannabis law, including Congress’s prohibition against Justice Department funds being used to prosecute medical cannabis cases.
  

“Jerry and Danny represent just a fraction of those who languish in prison for acts that are no longer considered crimes in many states, and for which there’s now a broad societal consensus that previous policies were unduly punitive and inconsistent with marijuana’s actual risks,” the House members wrote.

“We ask that you commute the federal prison sentences of all individuals who are incarcerated for nonviolent marijuana offenses,” they said. “We also call upon you to pardon such offenses for people who already live peacefully in free society and to support federal legislation to expunge marijuana offenses. In doing so, you would be helping to fulfill the promises you’ve made, while also meaningfully improving people’s lives and building upon the historic statement made by your previous general pardon.”