“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
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