Friend,

As cannabis is legalized in many states and the public largely favors legalization, it’s time for justice for those harmed under criminalization.

This is an urgent racial justice issue. Despite similar use rates, Black Americans are arrested for cannabis possession nearly 4x more than white Americans. Black people are more likely to be arrested even in states that have legalized marijuana, and almost all marijuana arrests are for mere possession.

On the campaign trail, President Biden said: “I think we should decriminalize marijuana, period. And I think everyone – anyone who has a record – should be let out of jail, their records expunged, be completely zeroed out.”

I held him to his promise when sending a letter to the president last year, calling on him to issue a blanket pardon to those with federal nonviolent marijuana offenses. Now we’ve got to keep up public pressure to make it happen.

Sign now to President Biden: Fulfill your campaign promise. Pardon all federal cannabis offenses, without any more delay.

Although my home state of Michigan has legalized marijuana and taken steps to help people expunge their past criminal records, many people are still serving cannabis-related sentences in our state’s prisons. At the same time, dispensary owners in the state are profiting from the legal cannabis industry.

This same senseless inequality is happening across the country. Many of the people still serving time for cannabis-related offenses would not have been convicted, or at least not sentenced as harshly, under today’s standards.

President Biden’s blanket pardon would free people serving federal sentences, set a tremendous precedent for state and local leaders, and begin to move our nation away from marijuana criminalization and prohibition.

In addition to pardoning people, it’s essential to set up automatic expungement of cannabis-related criminal records. Otherwise people can lose their housing, their employment, their voting rights, and more.

That ongoing precariousness is one of the reasons why Black and brown communities in particular are still suffering from cannabis criminalization. It’s time to right this wrong. It’s time for justice.

Please sign the petition to President Biden: Pardon all federal cannabis offenses now.

Thank you for moving our country toward justice for all.

In solidarity,

Rashida