Now that weed is becoming legal in many places, people are waking up to the irony of it all.
Many people, specifically those of color, remain behind bars due to weed-related offenses, including rapper Ralo. According to Complex, there is a new imitative from the cannabis clemency activist group Mission Green. The group partnered with several heavy hitters like Drake, Killer Mike, Deion Sanders, and John Wall to send a letter to President Joe Biden demanding the prison release of rapper “Ralo” Davis.
“On behalf of Terrell Davis and his family, we strongly urge you to grant clemency for Mr. Davis, who is serving federal time for nonviolent marijuana offense,” the letter reads per Forbes. “The undersigned— musicians, actors, athletes, filmmakers, current and former elected and appointed government officials, advocates, and business leaders—strongly believe that justice necessitates the exercise of clemency in this case. Our nation’s view of cannabis has evolved, and it is indefensible to incarcerate citizens based on the unduly harsh attitudes of past generations.”
Ralo has remained incarcerated going on three years now for his connection to a drug trafficking case. He was hit with two federal counts of intent to distribute marijuana after authorities found 444 pounds of weed on a private plane he was on in 2018. Ralo faces up to eight years if he is found guilty.
But because recreational cannabis use is now legal in 16 states and medically permitted in over 20, including Ralo’s home state of Georgia, many are urging the release of him and others like him that have been incriminated for weed-related offenses.
According to the news outlet, Black people are four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana than Whites, and many remain behind bars as the world starts to legalize weed. A move that just doesn’t sit right with some.
“At a time where so many young White people and others are capitalizing off of marijuana’s new legitimacy to see this brother sit and suffer is sickening. He is a real one and helped his community, and now he is a hostage of the state,” Killer Mike tweeted recently, while T.I. asked: “How is it ok for a white man in Oregon, Nevada, or Colorado to grow, smoke, and profit millions from marijuana but a young black man from the Westside of Atlanta who’s been nothing less than a service and a pillar to his community can be jailed and taken away from his family for allegedly doing the same thing?”
“Matthew Maddox called in the pit boss, double checkin’/‘The number’s all good, just pay me, I’m at the Rhino,’” Drake raps on his Lemon Pepper Freestyle in support of Ralo. “Real life, the whole fam’ goons like Ralo.”
The letter sent by the group and entertainers chose to use the words of Biden himself: “I think we should decriminalize marijuana, period,” President Biden said in 2019. “And I think everyone – anyone who has a record should be let out of jail, their records expunged, be completely zeroed out.”
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