Democrats Push Trump to Commute Federal Marijuana Sentences

Thousands of people remain in federal prison for marijuana offenses even as the Trump administration moves to reclassify the drug under federal law. A coalition of nearly 30 Democratic lawmakers sent a letter on May 22, 2026, formally calling on President Trump to use his clemency authority to commute the sentences of everyone federally incarcerated for non-violent marijuana-related offenses.

The letter is led by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV), and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and is addressed to both the president and Alice Marie Johnson, who serves as his pardon czar. Its core argument is straightforward: the administration’s rescheduling action speaks to the law going forward, not to the people already serving time under the old one.

“Rescheduling marijuana does not provide relief for anyone currently in federal prison from a marijuana conviction,” the letter states. “As president, you have a unique opportunity to use your constitutional authority and issue a categorical commutation to address this continuing injustice.”

What Rescheduling Does and Doesn’t Fix

The Trump administration took its most concrete step on federal cannabis policy on April 23, 2026, when Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed a DOJ order immediately moving FDA-approved cannabis products and state-licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I — the federal government’s most restricted drug category — to Schedule III. The order also launched an expedited administrative hearing, scheduled to begin June 29, 2026, to determine whether cannabis more broadly should be reclassified. That process followed a December 2025 executive order in which Trump directed the Justice Department to complete the rescheduling process as quickly as federal law allows.

The April order delivered real changes for state-licensed medical cannabis operators. Moving out of the federal government’s two most restricted drug categories means the tax disallowance that had prevented those operators from deducting ordinary business expenses no longer applies to them — an issue California’s cannabis regulator moved quickly to address through emergency rules. But what rescheduling cannot do is retroactively alter a sentence already imposed. No prisoner is released. No sentence is automatically reduced. A conviction for marijuana trafficking handed down before the rescheduling order remains on the books exactly as written, and the person serving it remains in a federal cell.

That gap between rescheduling the drug and releasing people convicted under the old rules is the space the Democratic lawmakers are trying to force Trump to fill.

Roughly 3,000 Still Serving Federal Marijuana Sentences

The letter draws on U.S. Sentencing Commission data estimating roughly 3,000 people are currently federally incarcerated for marijuana trafficking offenses. Hundreds — possibly thousands — are serving mandatory minimum sentences of five years or longer. Some are serving sentences measured in decades.

Racial enforcement patterns are central to the letter’s argument. The lawmakers cite research findings that Black Americans are arrested for marijuana possession at 3.6 times the rate of white Americans, despite similar rates of use. The enforcement pattern that produced those incarceration numbers wasn’t neutral, and rescheduling does nothing to address the lives still caught inside it.

The letter also makes a practical case: the Bureau of Prisons is, by the lawmakers’ account, both overcrowded and understaffed. Commuting marijuana sentences won’t fix those structural problems, they acknowledge, but it would let the agency direct its limited capacity toward people who pose ongoing public safety risks rather than toward people serving time for a drug most states now permit in some form.

The letter asks for two specific things: a categorical commutation for everyone imprisoned for non-violent federal marijuana offenses, and a directive requiring the Bureau of Prisons to provide reentry services to those released. People serving life sentences are often ineligible for standard reentry programming — a gap the letter asks the administration to close explicitly.

The signatories run largely along the left flank of the Democratic caucus. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Ed Markey (D-MA) signed on, along with more than twenty House members, including Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC).

What Trump Has and Hasn’t Done on Clemency

Trump’s clemency record since returning to office has focused primarily on political allies and financial-crime convictions. No broad marijuana clemency has been issued in his current term. During his first term, Trump commuted a handful of individual cannabis sentences — including a life sentence in a marijuana trafficking case — but took no categorical action on marijuana prisoners as a class.

The Democratic push lands at an unusual moment. Trump has ordered cannabis rescheduled, signed the executive order that set the current process in motion, and presided over the April DOJ order that made the first immediate reclassification. His administration has, in effect, acknowledged that the federal treatment of marijuana was out of step with where the country stands. The letter argues that if the administration really believes that, the next logical step isn’t just regulatory — it’s releasing the people whose lives were shaped by the policy it just walked away from.

The DEA administrative hearing beginning June 29, 2026, will determine how broad that rescheduling ultimately gets, and whether cannabis products outside the state-licensed medical system follow. The Army’s reaffirmation of its total cannabis ban, even after the April order, illustrates how many federal policies remain detached from the rescheduling action. The people in federal prisons for marijuana trafficking are in the same position — and only a clemency action, not a rulemaking, changes that.