California hashish prisoner Luke Scarmazzo was free of jail on Feb. 3, with assist from Mission Inexperienced, a marketing campaign led by The Weldon Venture. “In the present day, after serving practically 15 years in jail for working a hashish dispensary, I used to be granted my freedom,” Scarmazzo wrote on his Facebook page. “The sensation is surreal. We’ve labored towards this present day for thus lengthy. This was an enormous victory for my household, associates, group and the whole hashish motion. I’ll take a second to take pleasure in this, however make no mistake, there’s nonetheless a lot work to be finished—my individuals must be free—and that arduous work begins now.”
Scarmazzo owned a Modesto-based dispensary, referred to as the California Healthcare Collective (CHC), with Ricardo Montes in 2004. In September 2006, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raided CHC and Scarmazzo and Montes, who had been 26 on the time, had been discovered responsible in 2008. In the end Scarmazzo was sentenced to 21 years and 10 months, and Montes was sentenced to twenty years. Montes was later pardoned by former President Barack Obama in 2017, however Scarmazzo remained in jail.
Scarmazzo petitioned for launch in January 2021, however was denied. On Fb, he shared the main points of his life in jail after the denial. “I’ve been on this quarantine unit in a federal penitentiary at Yazoo Metropolis, Mississippi for 91 days. After I arrived right here jail officers lied and informed me I’d solely be right here the usual 14 days. This, regardless of me being ‘COVID recovered’ in September 2020, with at the least a brief acquired pure immunity,” Scarmazzo wrote. “I’m locked into my cell 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. Out of 168 hour week, I’m allowed out of my cell for 3 hours to take a bathe and use the cellphone; the opposite 165 I’m in a concrete field. I haven’t felt the nice and cozy solar or inhaled a breath of recent air in over 3 months. I’m fed sufficient to be saved alive and confined in frigid temperatures. And these are just some of the blatant constitutional and human rights violations that I endure day by day with out simply trigger.”
Throughout his sentence, Scarmazzo met Weldon Angelos, an inmate who was sentenced to 55 years in jail for a hashish conviction. The 2 spent seven years in jail collectively, however ultimately in 2016 Angelos was launched after having served for 13 years, and obtained a full pardoned in December 2020. After being launched, Angelos based The Weldon Venture and has continued to advocate for the discharge of different prisoners who’re nonetheless serving time for hashish convictions.
“Pleased to announce that Luke is being launched in the present day! The choose granted compassionate launch based mostly on coverage modifications on the federal!” Angelos shared on Twitter the day that Scarmazzo was released.
Judge Dale Drozd issued a compassionate launch order based mostly on his case. “Defendant Scarmazzo is definitely right when he argues that there have been ‘dramatic modifications within the authorized panorama regarding the sale and use of marijuana’ over the 15 years since he was sentenced, together with ‘modifications in [state] marijuana legal guidelines, Congress’s perspective, public sentiment, the Justice Division’s enforcement insurance policies, and…case regulation.’ That is significantly true in California the place [the] defendant was working his marijuana dispensary,” Drozd wrote. “Whereas federal regulation stays unchanged—nonetheless making the possession, cultivation and distribution of marijuana illegal and topic to legal penalties—federal prosecutions for marijuana-related offenses have been curbed considerably, significantly in states like California which have legalized these actions with some restrictions. Within the undersigned’s expertise, for essentially the most half federal prosecution of marijuana offenses in California is now restricted to these offenders engaged in giant, unauthorized cultivation websites situated on federal lands.”
Like Angelos, Scarmazzo has pledged to assist others like himself be free of jail for hashish convictions. In October 2022, the U.S. Sentencing Fee estimated that greater than 6,577 individuals who obtain pardons from the Biden administration after President Joe Biden introduced pardons for easy hashish possession. California Gov. Gavin Newsom introduced 10 pardons in December 2022, with at the least two of these prisoners having hashish convictions. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf additionally not too long ago pardoned 2,500 individuals in January 2023, 400 of which had been convicted of nonviolent hashish offenses.