‘My Criminality Still Stands,’ Pot Prisoner Speaks Out Amid Booming Legal Weed Sales And Biden’s ‘No One Should Be In Jail’ Refrain
The Last Prisoner Project (LPP), a nonprofit dedicated to gaining the release of people incarcerated due to the War on Drugs, is preparing to exert public pressure on Congress and the President to legalize cannabis.
The organization will be mobilizing a large bi-partisan coalition of US cannabis advocacy, industry and grassroots organizations to lobby in Washington DC on April 18 for 420 Unity Day of action to push lawmakers for reform, to free those still incarcerated and to provide retroactive relief.
The announcement comes on the heels of President Biden’s recent State of the Union speech, during which he reiterated that no one should be incarcerated for possessing cannabis. This topic will surely be discussed in depth at the upcoming Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference in Florida on April 16 and 17, 2024.
In 2023, Biden announced he was pardoning thousands of people convicted for the use and/or simple possession of marijuana on federal lands and in DC. The pardons included offenses related to “use and possession on certain Federal lands,” provisions that were not covered by Biden’s October 2022 pardon of some 6,500 federal cannabis prisoners.
Pardons are meant to remove barriers to housing, employment and educational opportunities, though they don’t expunge criminal records, nor remove anyone from prison for that matter.
This means that even though 24 states and DC have legalized adult-use sales and that President Biden has said on various occasion that no one should be in jail for possessing or using cannabis, tens of thousands of people remain in state and federal prisons.
The Case Of Edwin Rubis
Edwin Rubis has been in prison for a non-violent marijuana crime since 1998. His release date is 2031. Rubis, a Last Prisoner Project’s constituent, recently sent a moving letter to the organization.
“It’s been twenty-six years in the making, or let’s say the unmaking of a life I once had,” Rubis wrote. “The …