29 Lawmakers Tell Trump: Free Federal Cannabis Prisoners Now

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The Letter That Could Change Thousands of Lives

On May 22, 2026, a coalition of 29 Democratic lawmakers did something that most people would consider pretty straightforward: they asked the President of the United States to let people out of prison for something that is rapidly becoming legal across the country.

The letter, addressed directly to President Trump, urges the administration to commute the sentences of approximately 3,000 people currently serving time in federal prisons for cannabis trafficking offenses. Led by Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN), Representative Steven Horsford (D-NV), and Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), the bipartisan-adjacent effort includes six senators and 23 House members who argue that the federal government's own actions on rescheduling have made continued incarceration for cannabis offenses morally and logically indefensible.

The timing is deliberate. The administration moved in April 2026 to reclassify cannabis to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act, a historic acknowledgment that marijuana does not belong alongside heroin and LSD on the federal scheduling hierarchy. But here's the thing that the 29 lawmakers want everyone to understand: rescheduling a substance on paper doesn't unlock a single prison cell.

What Rescheduling Actually Did (and Didn't Do)

To understand why this letter matters, you need to understand what Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's April 23 order actually accomplished. The order moved FDA-approved cannabis products and state-authorized medical marijuana to Schedule III, placing them in the same regulatory neighborhood as ketamine, anabolic steroids, and Tylenol with codeine.

That's meaningful for several reasons. Schedule III classification opens the door for more streamlined cannabis research, eliminates the punitive Section 280E tax burden that has been suffocating legal cannabis businesses for years, and sends an unmistakable cultural signal that the federal government no longer views marijuana as one of the most dangerous substances on earth.

What the rescheduling order does not do, however, is retroactive. Nobody's sentence gets reduced. Nobody walks out of a federal facility. Nobody gets a hearing. The roughly 3,000 people serving federal time for cannabis trafficking offenses wake up in the same bunk, eat the same food, and count the same days regardless of whether their substance of conviction is classified as Schedule I, Schedule III, or Schedule Nothing.

The coalition's letter makes this point with uncomfortable clarity: the government has effectively conceded that cannabis is not the dangerous drug it once claimed, yet it continues to hold thousands of people in cages for activities related to that very substance.

Who's Behind the Push

The coalition is led by three lawmakers who have been among the most vocal advocates for cannabis reform in Congress, each bringing different political strengths to the effort.

Representative Steve Cohen, who represents Memphis, Tennessee, has been pushing cannabis reform for over a decade. He's introduced legislation to deschedule marijuana entirely, has been a consistent critic of the war on drugs, and represents a district where the racial disparities of cannabis enforcement are starkly visible. Cohen brings institutional knowledge and legislative credibility to the effort.

Representative Steven Horsford of Nevada represents a state where cannabis has been legal for recreational use since 2017, generating hundreds of millions in tax revenue while the federal government continues to incarcerate people for the same activity. The contradiction between Nevada's thriving dispensary scene and federal prisons holding cannabis offenders is, for Horsford, a daily reminder of policy incoherence.

Senator Cory Booker has arguably done more than any single legislator to center cannabis reform as a racial justice issue. His Cannabis Justice Act, first introduced in 2017, was among the first major federal proposals to tie legalization to restorative justice measures. Booker's presence gives the letter Senate-level gravitas and connects the pardon request to the broader movement for criminal justice reform.

The remaining 26 signatories span the geographic and ideological spectrum of the Democratic caucus, from progressive urban representatives to moderate members from swing districts. Their collective signature signals that cannabis clemency is not a fringe position within the party but an emerging consensus.

The Numbers Behind the Plea

The approximately 3,000 people currently incarcerated in federal facilities for cannabis trafficking represent a fraction of the total federal prison population, but each one represents a human story shaped by policies that the government itself is now revising.

Federal cannabis trafficking sentences are often staggeringly long. Mandatory minimum sentencing laws, enacted during the height of the drug war, can produce sentences of 10, 20, or even life in prison for cannabis offenses involving large quantities. Many of these sentences were imposed in an era when marijuana was culturally stigmatized, politically toxic, and widely viewed through a lens that equated cannabis distribution with violent organized crime.

The racial composition of federal cannabis prisoners makes the clemency argument even more urgent. Despite roughly equal rates of cannabis use across racial groups, Black Americans have historically been arrested for cannabis offenses at rates nearly four times higher than white Americans. That disparity is reflected in federal prison populations, where Black and Latino individuals are disproportionately represented among cannabis offenders.

For the coalition, the math is simple: if the government now acknowledges that cannabis is not a Schedule I substance, then the sentences imposed under the premise that it was one deserve review. Not as a matter of policy preference, but as a matter of basic fairness.

The Rescheduling Timeline and Why It Matters

The lawmakers' letter arrives at a critical moment in the broader rescheduling process. While Acting AG Blanche's April order moved certain cannabis products to Schedule III, the DEA's more comprehensive rescheduling hearing is scheduled to begin on June 29, 2026. That hearing will address the broader question of whether all cannabis — not just FDA-approved products and state medical programs — should be moved to Schedule III.

The June 29 hearing has the potential to reshape federal cannabis policy more dramatically than anything that has come before it. If the DEA proceeds with broad rescheduling, it would represent the most significant federal drug policy change since the Controlled Substances Act was enacted in 1970.

But the coalition argues that the hearing timeline actually strengthens their case for immediate clemency. If the government is actively moving toward reclassifying cannabis — acknowledging through its own regulatory process that decades of Schedule I classification were wrong — then waiting months or years while the bureaucratic process unfolds means keeping people locked up for an activity the government is in the process of legitimizing.

The letter essentially asks the president to do what only the president can do: act faster than the regulatory machinery by using the pardon power to address individual injustice while the system catches up.

Historical Context: Presidential Cannabis Clemency

The request isn't without precedent. President Biden, in October 2022, issued a blanket pardon for federal simple marijuana possession offenses and directed a review of federal cannabis scheduling. That action was largely symbolic — very few people were serving federal time for simple possession alone — but it established the principle that a president can use clemency powers to address cannabis justice.

The current coalition is asking for something more substantial. Cannabis trafficking, unlike simple possession, involves cultivation, distribution, or sale of marijuana, and federal trafficking sentences are the ones that produce the devastating multi-decade terms that keep people imprisoned long after society's views on cannabis have evolved.

The political calculus for Trump is complicated. His administration has taken concrete steps on rescheduling, which aligns with his stated support for cannabis reform and his appeal to libertarian-leaning voters. But mass clemency for drug trafficking offenses cuts against the tough-on-crime messaging that remains a cornerstone of his political brand. The question for the White House is whether cannabis trafficking can be separated, in the public mind, from the broader drug enforcement narrative.

What Happens Next

The letter is, in the most literal sense, a request. It carries no legal force and creates no obligation. The president's pardon power is absolute and discretionary — he can commute every cannabis sentence tomorrow, or he can file the letter away and never mention it again.

What the letter does accomplish is putting the question on the record. Twenty-nine members of Congress have formally asked the president to use his constitutional authority to address what they view as an ongoing injustice. That creates a reference point for journalists, advocates, and future legislators. It becomes part of the documented history of the cannabis reform movement, regardless of the immediate outcome.

For the roughly 3,000 people sitting in federal facilities, the letter represents something more personal: evidence that someone in a position of power remembers they exist and believes their continued incarceration is wrong.

The DEA hearing begins June 29. The rescheduling process will unfold over months. The political conversation around cannabis will continue to evolve. But for those currently behind bars, each day that passes while the system deliberates is a day they don't get back.

The Bigger Picture

The tension between rescheduling and incarceration highlights a fundamental question that the cannabis reform movement has been grappling with for years: who benefits when policy changes, and who gets left behind?

Rescheduling to Schedule III is primarily a win for the cannabis industry — the tax relief, banking access, and regulatory normalization that come with reclassification benefit businesses and investors. For consumers in legal states, day-to-day life doesn't change much. For researchers, new avenues open up.

But for the people who were caught up in enforcement of the old rules, rescheduling changes nothing unless it's accompanied by a deliberate effort to address past harms. Clemency, expungement, and reentry support are the mechanisms through which policy reform translates into justice for individuals. Without them, rescheduling is a reform that benefits everyone except the people who paid the highest price for prohibition.

The 29 lawmakers who signed the May 22 letter are making a simple argument: if the rules are changing, the people punished under the old rules deserve a second look. Whether the president agrees remains to be seen.