"I have to question, if I were blonde haired and blue eyed, sitting there facing 10 years, would have gotten that 10 year sentence" on cannabis-related charges, asks Stephanie Shepard. Unlock the full interview by upgrading now.
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FEATURING STEPHANIE SHEPARD - Since 2014, when Colorado and Washington decriminalized recreational cannabis, the movement to legalize what was once considered a dangerous and illegal drug has grown rapidly. While cannabis remains illegal under federal law, 24 states and the District of Columbia no longer criminalize marijuana possession. Yet, many people who were imprisoned over marijuana-related charges in the past remain behind bars. According to the Last Prisoner Project, the number is about 40,000 people in federal and state prisons combined.
Stephanie Shepard is executive director of Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit working to redress the harms of cannabis criminalization through legal intervention, education and criminal justice reform advocacy. She served a ten-year sentence for a nonviolent, first-time cannabis offense. She spoke with Sonali Kolhatkar about her organization's efforts this 4/20 to change a system that continues to hold people in prison on cannabis-related charges.
ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:
Sonali Kolhatkar: So, Monday of this week was April 20th, 4/20. It was a day that a lot of people around the country sort of celebrated increasing decriminalization of cannabis. It's a day that's ripe for social media posts, et cetera. And yet, organizations like yours used that day to draw attention to the fact that there's still 40,000 people serving sentences for an offense that is considered in at least something like half the states of the country to not be criminal anymore. Tell me about this very large number. It was actually larger than I was expecting, 40,000 people. How did you even arrive at that number? Is it known that that is the actual number?
Stephanie Shepard: We don't know if that's the actual number. Early on, we did some research, and from what we could see, 40,000 on the state and federal level was about right. But because the system is so antiquated, there is no real way to give, at any point in time, an exact number. But we have our guesstimations based on our records and our research and our constituency that there's roughly 3,000 people, between 2,800 and 3,000 people incarcerated for cannabis on the federal level, and the remainder of that's on the state level.
But a lot of times what'll happen is you'll be there for cannabis, but they'll just list it as “drugs.” So, there's a lot of different nuances that needs to happen to exactly give an exact number. But it could possibly be more. We don't know, based off of the information given from the BOP and the Department of Corrections.
Kolhatkar: And I imagine these are disproportionately Black and Brown people.
Shepard: Yes. Black and Brown people, four to five times more likely to be arrested for cannabis and have it result in a longer sentence. It's very difficult to reconcile for myself, having a first-time, victimless cannabis conspiracy charge and it resulting in 10 years of my life plus five years’ probation.
