5 minute read
SERVING life for POT
by Tatiana Melendez
For decades, medical cannabis has been providing relief to patients throughout the world, even as the federal government and most other states have been slow to recognize the health benefits of marijuana. Now, states are finally moving towards legalization, and public opinion has shifted in favor of legalization, at least for medicinal purposes, and states have even made recreational cannabis legal. All this news is good news; however, decades of bad drug policy in the United States have led to countless lives being ruined and billions of dollars wasted in a futile effort to stop people from using cannabis products
The number of people incarcerated because of cannabis demonstrates the importance of taking prompt actions to decriminalize marijuana. A report published by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics states 94,678 people are in federal prison with a drug violation considered the most severe offense they committed, which led to their incarceration. Of this group, 12% are in federal prison because they violated marijuana laws. A total of 11,533 people were incarcerated because of their involvement with cannabis products. Most of the people who were imprisoned for cannabis in federal prison were convicted of drug trafficking offenses as well. Another way to put it in perspective is all the time lost behind bars over marijuana possession. The average length of time people in federal prison serve for marijuana-related offenses is eighty months.
Taking a closer look at these people, most of these prisoners are not hardened or violent criminals. 44% of inmates in federal prison due to marijuana convictions had no criminal history or a minimal criminal history and had never previously served time in prison, and 85% did not own a firearm. Hmmm, but the war on marijuana continues. With $22 billion in legitimate sales expected by 2021, marijuana has become a consumer product like any other. But new laws have done nothing for people with past convictions, including some with sentences heavier than for rape or murder. Hopes and dreams are hard to acquire in prison; nonetheless, enduring a sea of sadness every day is an emotional toll. From the monotonous regiment forced on humans to the time of day they ' re allowed to eat and bathe, the environment is meant to inflict sorrow and prolonged pain in the hearts and souls of the human beings locked inside, especially over something that is progressively being legalized.
Serving life for pot can transform a human. Good or bad. Take Amy Ralston Povah, for example. Her story speaks volumes. Amy received clemency after serving nine years and three months of a twenty-four-year sentence for drug conspiracy. She states: "more than two decades ago, no one was receiving any relief from this now nonsensical, corrupt and insanely dangerous war on drugs. Like so many girlfriends, wives, and other alleged drug dealer family members, I wasn 't locked up for my own decisions.
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Instead, I was imprisoned due to the abusive conspiracy net common in the U.S. justice system, where ancillary figures like me get swept up and indicted based on association alone. " If your thoughts take you to substantial assistance * then you are correct! In other words, these humans are not serving time for drug dealing. Instead, they are serving time for refusing to become a working informant for the feds. Once free, she made it her mission to speak up for those wrongfully done as her.
Now, she is an accomplished filmmaker, writer, speaker, and activist. She founded the "CAN-DO" Foundation, which stands for Clemency for All Nonviolent Drug Offenders. The foundation ' s site contains women ' s faces she served time with and created bios on their stories. Her dreams became a reality when Glamour Magazine was the first significant publication that exposed the conspiracy law using Amy Ralston Povah' s case as the anchor story to illustrate how a woman can end up serving time for the actions of a significant other.
On the other side of the spectrum, we have Craig Cesal. A first-time offender, who did nothing more than recover and repair trucks that had previously hauled marijuana, served a life sentence without parole. Some of the trucks he retrieved were used to smuggle drugs. One day, Cesal recovered a truck in Georgia in 2002.
It had no marijuana in it; the cargo had been seized at the Mexican border. Nonetheless, he was charged with conspiracy to distribute marijuana. Again, cards stacked up against someone. Some marijuana lifers indeed imported lots of weed; however, the defendant was a minor player in many cases and was never caught with so much as a trace. I genuinely believe this started the stigma of jumping to all kinds of logicalsounding yet inaccurate conclusions as the prisoner must have been importing tons of marijuana, been violent, or had some prior severe offenses. Obviously not.
We see it too often enough now. To get a sentence reduced, one must recruit, set up, and testify against others. Cops and prosecutors alike target people facing long prison sentences for these trades — cooperation that shackles someone else in exchange for a lighter sentence. The only people who end up with long prison terms are those who exercise their 6th Amendment- the constitutional right to a trial. It' s now referred to as the "trial penalty phase.
One last story. Ever heard of LifeforPot.com? Beth Curtis founded the website LifeforPot.com in 2009 to advocate for clemency for her brother John and people serving excessively long federal sentences for marijuana-related crimes.
She started her advocacy work, hoping to bring public awareness about federal marijuana sentencing. Her site has been effective, and it' s helped her find more cases alike. Thirtynine people have been profiled on the site, twenty-four of whom were granted clemency or compassionate release. Curtis ' brother John Knock was the most recent beneficiary of her hard work. President Trump granted him clemency in January 2020.
She states:
Curtis said.
"So, I' m not done.
She is amazing.
