ReportWire

Tag: Ross Ulbricht

  • Cannabis Industry Startled By Adminstration’s Pardon

    [ad_1]

    Cannabis industry startled by administration’s pardon as major drug kingpins are freed while small businesses struggle for legitimacy.

    The contradictions are stark: on one hand, millions of Americans — roughly 88% — now believe cannabis should be legal for medical or recreational use. On the other, the federal government under Donald J. Trump is granting pardons to major drug-kingpins, effectively undercutting the very legitimacy of drug enforcement — and prolonging the regulatory limbo for the legitimate cannabis industry. The cannabis industry startled by administration’s pardon, and has serious concerns.

    RELATED: Starbucks Brings Back Holiday Customer Favorite

    Recent polling from Pew Research Center (January 2024) shows 88% of U.S. adults believe marijuana should be legal for “medical or recreational use.” 57% support full legalization (medical + recreational).

    • 32% favor medical use only.

    These numbers reflect broad, cross-demographic support: across age groups, political affiliations, and social backgrounds. Yet despite this widespread public backing, federal law continues to treat cannabis as a Schedule I prohibited substance. Meanwhile, many small businesses — the backbone of the legal cannabis economy — remain stuck navigating a patchwork of state laws, banking restrictions, and regulatory uncertainty.

    Photo by Anton Petrus/Getty Images

    The legal cannabis industry in the United States is far from the caricature of drug-lords and illicit syndicates. In many states, it is built on “mom-and-pop,” small-business owners — growers, retailers, and delivery services — operating under state licensing regimes, paying taxes, and striving to meet compliance, safety, and community standards.

    These businesses often invest heavily in compliance: tracking seed-to-sale, adhering to local zoning laws, paying licensing fees, and ensuring product safety. They strive to be transparent and legitimate. Yet they continue to suffer — unable to access traditional banking, facing high regulatory costs, and vulnerable to federal enforcement risk.

    For these entrepreneurs, the inaction at the federal level — combined with aggressive pardons for large-scale traffickers — feels like a double injustice. While “real cannabis” operators play by the rules, the government’s clemency choices tacitly reward those who broke them.

    RELATED: Can Cannabis Or Alcohol Help With Colds

    In 2025, the Trump administration commuted or pardoned several high-profile drug offenders — individuals whose enterprises profited from illicit narcotics trafficking.

    Notably:

    • Juan Orlando Hernández — convicted in 2024 on federal drug-trafficking and weapons charges for enabling the shipment of hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States — received a full and unconditional presidential pardon on December 2, 2025. He had been sentenced to 45 years in prison before his release.
    • Ross Ulbricht — founder of the darknet marketplace Silk Road — received a full and unconditional pardon.
    • Larry Hoover and other convicted dealers were also granted clemency even as the administration publicly reiterated its commitment to a “drug war.”

    This paradox — pardoning convicted traffickers while claiming to crack down on drugs — has drawn sharp criticism. Observers argue it undermines not only the moral basis of drug enforcement, but also public trust in which operations deserve clemency and which don’t.

    The legal cannabis industry is caught in a confusing and often frustrating limbo. Federal policy sends mixed signals: the administration has pardoned high-profile drug kingpins — including international traffickers — while marijuana remains federally illegal. The message is stark: massive illegal dealers are forgiven, while small, law-abiding cannabis businesses continue to face obstacles.

    RELATED: Study Reinforces Marijuana’s Power To Treat PTSD

    Regulatory burdens remain heavy. Even as states embrace legalization, small cannabis operators contend with a maze of state laws, limited access to banking, and steep compliance costs. Without federal support, these businesses must navigate an uncertain legal landscape which limits growth and threatens survival.

    The pardons of major traffickers amplify the sense of hypocrisy. When convicted drug lords are freed while compliant cannabis businesses remain constrained, the government’s commitment to fairness and justice comes into question. The contrast highlights the uneven enforcement continuing to frustrate entrepreneurs who have worked hard to stay on the right side of the law.

    Looking Ahead: Steps to Align Policy and Reality

    For the industry to thrive, federal policy must finally catch up with public opinion:

    • Reclassify or reschedule cannabis so legal operators can run businesses with clarity and confidence under a consistent national framework.
    • Banking reform to provide access to financial services, loans, and basic banking infrastructure for compliant cannabis businesses.
    • Rational clemency and sentencing policies that distinguish between violent traffickers and nonviolent cannabis entrepreneurs, recognizing the huge difference in scale and harm.
    • Congressional action reflecting decades of rising public support and sets a clear path toward legalization.

    Until federal law aligns with the will of the people, the legal cannabis industry — largely composed of small “mom-and-pop” operations — will continue to face unnecessary barriers, even as the administration grants leniency to major traffickers. The result is a system that rewards the wrong actors while holding law-abiding entrepreneurs back.

    [ad_2]

    Terry Hacienda

    Source link

  • Trump, who wants to execute drug dealers, promises to free Ross Ulbricht

    Trump, who wants to execute drug dealers, promises to free Ross Ulbricht

    [ad_1]

    “We’re going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs,” former President Donald Trump said in November 2022 as he launched his 2024 presidential campaign, “to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts.”

    That promise was not an offhand remark; it has been core to Trump’s platform. Which made one of his comments yesterday at the Libertarian National Convention all the more interesting. “I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht,” he said, referring to the man serving two life sentences plus 40 years for a slew of convictions, including distributing narcotics. Ulbricht’s legal troubles stem an online marketplace he founded and operated called the Silk Road, where users could buy and sell illegal substances.

    Ulbricht has long been of interest to libertarians, many of whom have been dogged about their belief that his sentence was perversely disproportionate to his actual conduct. Taking Trump’s words at face value, it would appear the former president agrees, at the very least, that the nearly 11 years Ulbricht has served are sufficient punishment. That is hard to square with his supposed view that people who sell drugs should be put to death.

    The inconsistency here may be puzzling, but—as Reason‘s Jacob Sullum highlighted last year—it isn’t new to his remarks on Ulbricht. While in office, Trump famously commuted Alice Marie Johnson’s sentence after she was sent to prison for life without parole for her alleged role in a cocaine conspiracy. He widely touted the move (which was the right one) as a sign his saner approach to criminal justice.

    Not long after, Trump signed legislation that bolstered that narrative: the FIRST STEP Act, which lessened several mandatory minimum sentences and increased “good time” credits, among other modest provisions. It remains one of the more lasting and effective parts of Trump’s legacy, particularly when considering the very low recidivism rates for those released under the law.

    Now Trump, it seems, would allegedly pursue policies that would have many of those same beneficiaries killed. That would include not only Johnson but also the bulk of the people who were set free by the FIRST STEP Act, the majority of whom were serving time for drug trafficking offenses. It would almost certainly include Ulbricht, one of the more famous drug offenders on the planet.

    Trump also attempted to pull off this balancing act while he was in the White House. “We have to get tough on those people. We can have all the blue ribbon committees we want, but if we don’t get tough on the drug dealers, we’re wasting our time. And that toughness includes the death penalty,” he said—in 2018, the same year he commuted Johnson’s sentence and signed the FIRST STEP Act.

    It’s possible that the former president’s drug-warrior rhetoric is another part of the flamboyant performance art that has become one of his defining traits. Whether his Ulbricht promise is yet another element of that, just on the flip side of the coin, remains unclear—although one possibly instructive fact is that Trump had the opportunity for four years to sign such a clemency grant and opted not to.

    [ad_2]

    Billy Binion

    Source link