Go to pardonstoprogress.com and write a letter to your state officials urging them to go beyond pardons and use their clemency power to actually effectuate releases. (Don't worry, we make it really simple.)
TAKE ACTION: Rudi Gammo is serving 5.5 years in prison for a nonviolent cannabis offense in Michigan. Every day that goes by is another day he is denied justice. Read his story and join us as we call on @GovWhitmer to bring him home. #FreeRudiGammo π§΅
In 2018, Rudi Gammo was arrested and sentenced to 5.5 years in prison for allowing the caregivers who supplied his city-sanctioned medical dispensary with medical marijuana to cultivate the plant on his property.
That same year, Michigan residents voted to legalize adult-use marijuana and in 2019, @GovWhitmer promised to release and expunge anyone with cannabis-related offenses. But it's going on 4 years since then and Rudi is still incarcerated.
THREAD: Earlier today Congress reintroduced the MORE Act, the most comprehensive marijuana reform bill in U.S. history. If signed into law, the legislation would remove cannabis from the CSA & eliminate federal penalties for manufacturing, distributing or possessing marijuana.β£
The MORE Act would also create expungement & sentencing review processes for those with federal cannabis convictions, prohibit the denial of federal benefits due to marijuana-related conduct or charges, & use #cannabis tax revenues to fund community reinvestment programs.β£
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It is critically important that any piece of federal legalization legislation prioritizes β£social justice and repairing the harms of prohibition.
𧡠A pilot program run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons is outsourcing the prison mail management process to the for-profit company Smart Communications.β£
This program first sees Smart Communications convert greeting cards, letters, & other mail sent to incarcerated people into digital scans. The original correspondence, often lovingly crafted by friends and family, is then destroyed.β£
This new program also forces incarcerated people to access their treasured correspondence as low-quality printouts, or to read their cherished letters from home via screens located in shared kiosks in public areas of the prison (or on a tablet provided by Smart Communications).