Marijuana Moment: This Black History Month, Simply Rescheduling Marijuana Isn’t Enough While Cannabis Prisoners Remain Behind Bars

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“Rescheduling…does not free a single person from prison, clear a single criminal record or repair the racial harm created by decades of cannabis prohibition.”

By Stephanie Shepard, Last Prisoner Project

Every Black History Month, we are asked to reflect on how far our country has come, and to honor progress, resilience and the long fight for racial justice. That history includes not only landmark civil rights victories, but also the policies that followed them, including the war on drugs, which for decades has been used to police, punish and destabilize Black communities under the guise of public safety.

This year, that reflection comes at a moment of real movement on cannabis policy.

President Donald Trump’s decision to move forward with rescheduling marijuana under federal law signals a long-overdue acknowledgment that cannabis never belonged alongside the most dangerous substances in our criminal code, a classification that helped justify decades of racially disproportionate arrests, prosecutions and prison sentences.

That step deserves credit. But it also demands honesty. Rescheduling may shift policy going forward, but it does nothing for the people still living with the consequences of the past. It does not free a single person from prison, clear a single criminal record or repair the racial harm created by decades of cannabis prohibition.

I know this firsthand. More than a decade ago, I was sentenced to ten years in federal prison for a first-time, nonviolent cannabis offense. I lost nearly a decade of my life for conduct that is now legal in much of the country.

When I came home, cannabis storefronts were opening across the country, investors were getting rich and politicians were patting themselves on the back for “ending prohibition.” Meanwhile, people like me were expected to quietly rebuild our lives while thousands of others remained behind bars.

That contradiction sits at the heart of cannabis policy in America today.

The war on drugs has always been a racial justice issue.

For decades, Black and Brown communities were disproportionately targeted, policed, prosecuted and incarcerated for cannabis, despite similar usage rates across racial lines. Black Americans are still more than three times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white Americans. Those arrests led to convictions, lengthy prison sentences and lifelong barriers to housing, employment, education and voting.

Today, cannabis is a multibillion-dollar industry. States collect tax revenue, companies go public and politicians celebrate “progress.” But tens of thousands of people remain incarcerated for cannabis-related conduct, and millions more live with the collateral consequences of past convictions.

Legalization has created opportunity for some, while leaving behind the very communities that paid the highest price for prohibition.

That is why reform cannot stop at rescheduling or legalization alone.

If we are serious about justice, cannabis reform must include retroactive relief for those serving sentences that would never be imposed today. It must include automatic expungement of criminal records that continue to lock people out of jobs, housing and education. And it must include meaningful reentry support so that people coming home are not punished again for surviving incarceration.

At Last Prisoner Project, a national nonprofit dedicated to freeing people incarcerated for cannabis offenses and repairing the harms of cannabis criminalization, I work every day with people who have been waiting years, sometimes decades, for relief. Our organization provides direct legal representation to those still behind bars, supports families separated by incarceration and helps people returning home access housing, employment and other critical resources.

Almost every day, I hear from mothers who missed their children growing up, from fathers who have watched the world change through prison walls and from people who were punished not for violence, but for participating in an underground economy created by prohibition itself. Their lives were shaped by laws that lawmakers now openly admit were wrong, yet they remain trapped by their consequences.

I believe we can do better, because I have seen what justice looks like when it finally arrives. I have watched people walk out of prison after decades and reunite with their families. I have seen records cleared, doors reopened and futures restored.

That work does not happen on its own. Organizations like Last Prisoner Project depend on public support, and on partnership from the legal cannabis industry itself, to provide legal representation, support families separated by incarceration, help people returning home rebuild their lives and push for the policy changes needed to end these injustices for good.

As companies profit from a legal market built on the end of prohibition, they have both the opportunity and the responsibility to help repair the harm prohibition caused.

As we reflect this month on freedom, resilience and progress, we should remember that the fight for racial justice did not end with the passage of a bill or the opening of a dispensary. It continues wherever people remain incarcerated and excluded for conduct that society has legalized, normalized and turned into profit.

Stephanie Shepard is executive director of the Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit dedicated to freeing those incarcerated for cannabis offenses and repairing the harms of cannabis criminalization. She served nearly ten years in federal prison for a first-time, nonviolent cannabis offense.

The post This Black History Month, Simply Rescheduling Marijuana Isn’t Enough While Cannabis Prisoners Remain Behind Bars appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

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