What about the remaining prisoners serving life sentences for cannabis crimes who weren’t spared in Obama’s recent clemency announcement?

Life imprisonment is a fate reserved only for those guilty
of high crimes such as treason, murder, and human trafficking. POTUS, Barack
Obama, commuted
life sentences to 46 nonviolent prisoners effective Nov. 10, 2015. It’s a
huge and positive step for the United States, however, some
69 people in the United States remain sentenced to lifetime
incarceration for cannabis-related offenses. For those serving life without
parole, clemency is their only shot at freedom.

Bryan Schatz of Mother Jones reported that Francis
Darrell was the sole lifer guilty of a cannabis offense to be granted clemency
by Obama. Schatz explains
that Darrell was sentenced to life for “for cultivating a plant that more
than half of the US population now believes should be legal.” The Obama
Administration only has jurisdiction to grant clemency to federal prisoners.
State prisoners are at the mercy of their respective Governors.

The world’s longest serving cannabis prisoner is Antonio Bascaró, who
has been locked up since Feb. 21, 1980. His offense? Using fishing boats to
transport cannabis between Colombia and Florida. Bascaró was not eligible for
the Obama Administration’s efforts because he’s been incarcerated too long.
Antonio’s daughter Aicha pleaded
for compassion in The Clemency Report. “He disappeared from my life when
I was 12 years old,” says Aicha.  “My
children barely know him and mostly through photos. They will never know what
an amazing grandfather they have.”

Cheri Sicard is the vice president of the CAN-DO
Foundation, an advocacy group for nonviolent drug offenders. Sicard told
Mother Jones, “Of course they—the lifers—and I are all thrilled for
the prisoners who were released, but we are all discouraged that so very few
clemencies were given to marijuana offenders.”

Those that were freed will undoubtedly be eternally grateful
for their release. Obama’s presidential address states,
“These men and women were not hardened criminals, but the overwhelming majority
had been sentenced to at least 20 years. I believe that at its heart, America
is a nation of second chances. And I believe these folks deserve their second
chance.”  Bascaró and others like
him can only hope they are next.