Mike Tyson urges Biden to free thousands locked up over cannabis: ‘Right these wrongs’

The former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson has urged Joe Biden to follow through on his commitment to “correct our country’s failed approach to marijuana” and give clemency to the thousands of nonviolent cannabis offenders still languishing in federal lockups.

“President Biden has the power to effect real change – he can right these wrongs and grant clemency to those who are sitting in prison for cannabis offenses,” Tyson told the Guardian. “We know the failed war on drugs was wrong and no one should be sitting in jail for cannabis. It’s time our country moves forward and end cannabis prohibition once and for all.”

Legal cannabis sales in the US could soon reach $40bn annually. And campaigners say it is an injustice that more than 2,000 people – overwhelmingly people of color – are in federal jails sentenced for conduct that today is essentially legal in almost half of the country, with recreational cannabis legal in 24 states.

About 30,000 more are in state penitentiaries for non-violent cannabis offenses, activists say, with data patchy. Biden doesn’t have the power to pardon those offenders, but Tyson pleaded with the president to pressure those states to do so.

Biden has been accused of misleading voters in his messaging over his pardon for people convicted of simple marijuana possession offenses, in line with his campaign promise to decriminalize cannabis.

“No one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana,” he said in October 2022. However, as of nine months earlier, “no offenders sentenced solely for simple possession of marijuana remained in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons”, according to the US Sentencing Commission. (Those who remain in prison face charges including drug