Florida’s agriculture commissioner is looking out Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) over his determination to cancel an government clemency board assembly that she hoped could be used to facilitate pardons for folks with marijuana convictions on their data.
Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried (D) despatched a letter to the governor on Wednesday to specific her frustration over what she described as a “dereliction of responsibility” by cancelling the ultimate Clemency Board assembly of the yr.
Fried beforehand despatched a letter to DeSantis in October requesting that he place hashish clemency on the board’s agenda for the now-cancelled December assembly.
Florida Sen. Shevrin Jones (D) individually urged the governor to take steps to grant clemency to Floridians who’ve been criminalized over marijuana.
These asks got here after President Joe Biden issued a mass pardon for folks with federal marijuana possession convictions and known as on governors to observe go well with on the state stage.
Right now I wrote @GovRonDeSantis over his cancellation of our last Clemency Board assembly. With just one held this yr he’s abandoning his responsibility, particularly the consideration of pardons for state stage marijuana offenses. Floridians count on and deserve extra from their leaders. pic.twitter.com/nOdcJZM75C
— Commissioner Nikki Fried (@NikkiFriedFL) November 30, 2022
“You might have as soon as once more chosen to cancel our Clemency Board assembly, in addition to one other Cupboard Assembly,” the commissioner wrote. “On condition that we now have solely had one assembly of the Clemency Board this yr, it is a dereliction of responsibility. We’d have taken the primary important step in direction of rectifying previous wrongs and shifting state coverage according to the prevailing ideas of most Floridians, and most Individuals. As an alternative, you selected to delay justice to tens of hundreds of your fellow Floridians.”
A few month after Biden’s presidential pardons, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) introduced that she was granting a mass pardon for state-level marijuana possession offenses that may present aid to an estimated 45,000 folks. The president cheered Brown’s motion final week.
“Like these in Oregon, Floridians ought to by no means face obstacles to housing, employment, or an schooling due to a easy marijuana possession offense,” Fried, who campaigned on marijuana reform throughout her unsuccessful bid for the 2022 Democratic gubernatorial nomination said within the new letter. “Your pardon, executed by way of the State Clemency Board, would have eliminated these obstacles for tens of hundreds of Floridians, significantly Black and traditionally disenfranchised Floridians who’re arrested, prosecuted, and convicted at disproportionate charges.”
“As I mentioned final month once I made the preliminary request to you to offer this a listening to on the Clemency Board, the precise determination and the favored determination are usually not the identical. This could have been an historic alternative to perform each. In 2016, 71 % of Floridians voted in favor of making a state medical marijuana program. That now consists of 713,000 medical hashish sufferers. A latest College of North Florida ballot discovered 75 % of Floridians assist the legalization of marijuana, a sentiment seen throughout different state polls.”
Fried serves as a member of the clemency board, and he or she’s been particularly outspoken concerning the urgency of facilitating aid within the state for the reason that president issued the federal pardon proclamation final week.
Whereas a variety of governors across the county have already reacted to Biden’s request that they take hashish clemency motion on the state stage, DeSantis has declined to weigh in to this point.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) got here out in assist of marijuana decriminalization in October, saying it’s time to “finish the stigma” and saying steps he’s taken to discover his choices for independently granting aid to folks with present convictions.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D), in the meantime, signed two marijuana-related government orders final month: one to guard sufferers who meet sure standards and possess medical hashish legally obtained from dispensaries in different states, and one other to manage the sale of delta-8 THC merchandise. The medical hashish transfer is predicated on the governor’s clemency powers.
In the meantime, on the identical time that the Florida commissioner is applauding the Biden administration for taking this step, she’s additionally pursuing litigation in opposition to the Justice Division over the federal ban on firearm purchases by state-registered medical hashish sufferers.
A federal choose not too long ago dismissed Fried’s lawsuit—however the state official isn’t prepared to surrender the case simply but. The commissioner and her affected person co-plaintiffs appealed the choice to the U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit final month.
Learn the brand new letter from Fried to the Florida governor on hashish clemency beneath: