Restorative Justice and America's Pot POWs

This post is from The St Louis  Post - Dispatch  by: Peter Maguire


Peter Maguire is the author of “Law and War,” “Facing Death in Cambodia” and “Thai Stick.” He is a historian and former war-crimes investigator who has taught law and war theory at Columbia University, Bard College and University of North Carolina-Wilmington

Peter Maguire: Restorative justice must begin with America’s pot POWs

• By Peter Maguire
• Aug 21, 2019
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• Last month, American lawmakers, marijuana policymakers and industry leaders held a hearing on Capitol Hill about the future of marijuana legalization. While there was clear bipartisan support and even discussion of “restorative justice” for minorities adversely affected by the war on drugs, conspicuously absent was any discussion of sentence relief for those Americans still serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for nonviolent marijuana offenses. 
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• If lawmakers and the leaders of this fledgling industry who hope to profit from legalization do not support retroactive sentence relief for these pot prisoners of war, the legal cannabis industry will have neither integrity nor credibility. True restorative justice can only begin with clemency for those Americans serving life sentences for marijuana. There were no allegations of violence in the cases of the white, black and Latino men serving life for marijuana, yet all will likely die in prison.