Politics
Trump Releases More Federal Marijuana Prisoners As DEA Considers Rescheduling Cannabis
President Donald Trump has granted clemency to two people who are serving time for federal marijuana convictions as his administration advances the process of rescheduling cannabis.
The president on Thursday commuted the sentences of Jerry Haymon IV and Kevin Harden, effectively ending their sentences and putting them on the path to being free.
Haymon was given a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence in federal prison for his participation in a marijuana distribution conspiracy, and has been living in home confinement for the past year.
Until now, he has had about a year left to go and has experienced difficulty getting approval for jobs. For example, the private company overseeing his home confinement blocked his ability to handle social media for a cannabis company and to do research at a policy organization that touched on the issue of marijuana even though neither job would have involved him touching the plant.
“Today is an amazing day that I will never forget,” Haymon told Marijuana Moment on Friday after receiving the news of his commutation, saying it feels like he has been “reborn again.”
“I got my life back,” he said. “There are no words that can fully express what this act of clemency means to me and the people I love. I am deeply grateful to everyone who advocated for me, supported me and helped give me this second chance.”
Thirty-six members of Congress sent a letter to then-President Joe Biden in support of Haymon’s request for clemency.
“Jerry was a two-way football star in high school who went on to play defensive back in college, where he was majoring in economics (and even made the Dean’s List one semester),” the lawmakers wrote. “Prior to his arrest in 2017, Jerry was looking to try out for professional football. At sentencing, the trial judge regretfully noted that his hands were tied by federal mandatory minimum prison terms for marijuana.”
While Biden issued mass pardons to people who committed federal marijuana possession offenses, he did not heed calls to free people serving time in federal prison for involvement in selling cannabis.
Harden, the other person that Trump granted clemency to on Thursday, has been serving a 30-year sentence after being convicted of conspiracy to distribute marijuana.
His co-defendant in the cannabis case, James Romans, was granted clemency by Trump in 2021 on the final day of his first term in office.
While incarcerated, Harden has experienced several severe medical issues, including multiple open-heart surgeries, a seizure disorder and blood-clotting.
The clemency applications from Haymon and Harden were both accompanied by a letter that boxer Mike Tyson wrote to Trump in which he praised the president for making moves to federally reschedule marijuana.
“There are Americans still sitting in federal prison for the very conduct your order addresses, waiting to see if your historic words will extend to them,” he wrote. “With two-thirds of Americans in support of marijuana legalization, not more punishment, the politics align with common sense policy. Yet individuals remain behind bars under outdated federal laws for conduct that today would not result in prison in much of the country.”
“Granting clemency to non-violent marijuana offenders would reunite families, restore lost opportunity, and write the final chapter of the federal war on marijuana—a chapter that only you have the power to close,” Tyson said. “It would be a legacy moment: bold, decisive, and right. I respectfully urge you to act.”
The two cannabis commutations are part of a broader package of clemency grants the the president issued this week.
Trump’s move to free a handful of cannabis prisoners comes as his administration of moving forward with the process of federally rescheduling marijuana.
Attorney General Todd Blanche in April issued an order that immediately reclassified state-licensed medical cannabis, as well as marijuana products approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III.
Under a separate order he signed, the DEA hearing was held to consider more comprehensively moving marijuana to Schedule III. An agency judge is currently considering a recommendation on the issue, and then the DEA administrator will issue a final determination.
During the hearing, DEA officials charged with defending the cannabis rescheduling proposal highlighted testimony on marijuana’s medical benefits and its relative safety compared to other substances such as alcohol and opioids.
That included appearances from a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scientist and a medical doctor from New Hampshire who detailed how medical marijuana provides relief to pain patients and can serve as an alternative to opioids.
Weldon Angelos, founder of the criminal justice non-profit The Weldon Project who received a cannabis-related presidential pardon during Trump’s first term, said that “today is an extraordinary day for two deserving men and their families.”
“These grants of clemency are about mercy, redemption, second chances and recognizing the humanity in people who have already paid an enormous price for their mistakes,” he said.
“President Trump has granted clemency to two individuals serving prison time for cannabis, Jerry Haymon and Kevin Harden. Jerry, a former college football standout, has worked incredibly hard to demonstrate that a person’s worst moment should never define the rest of their life. Kevin has endured serious and debilitating medical conditions that have made his continued incarceration both extraordinarily difficult and increasingly dangerous.”
“I am deeply grateful to President Trump and Alice Johnson for continuing to give deserving people a pathway home,” Angelos said, referring to Trump’s White House pardon czar who herself received clemency from Trump in 2018.
“For Jerry and Kevin, and especially for the families who have waited and prayed for this day, this is life-changing,” he said. “We are also encouraged by the administration’s continued commitment to clemency and expect to see more deserving individuals receive relief in the future. This is exactly why we do this work.”
Haymon said he is “eternally grateful to President Donald J. Trump and Alice Johnson for granting me a full commutation for my marijuana offense and giving me the opportunity to move forward with my life without this conviction hanging over me.”
“I also want to thank Weldon Angelos and the entire Mission Green and Weldon Project team for believing in me, fighting for me, and never giving up on my case,” he said. “They stood beside me and my family throughout this process and worked tirelessly to make this moment possible.”
Erik Luna, who represented Haymon on behalf of the Mission Green Initiative and serves as director of research and legal policy at the Weldon Project, said his client “received a ten-year federal sentence for conduct that is now legal in both states where the offense occurred.”
“Jerry served years in prison for a first-time, nonviolent marijuana offense, while today multi-billion-dollar cannabis companies operate openly under state law—often with armed security—engaging in the very conduct for which Jerry was convicted and sentenced,” he said. “That is the definition of injustice.”
Earlier this year, Trump pardoned a former NFL star who was convicted of trafficking 175 pounds of marijuana.
At the start of his second term, the president fulfilled a campaign promise by commuting the life sentence of Ross Ulbricht, a man who was convicted of running a dark web illicit drug market.
