'Longest-serving cannabis offender' to be released early from 90-year prison sentence

The U.S. has the highest number of prison inmates per population in the world.

https://news.yahoo.com/longest-serving-cannabis-offender-released-094530529.html

Alicia Victoria Lozano
Sat, November 21, 2020, 4:45 AM EST

After serving more than three decades in prison for nonviolent cannabis offenses, a 71-year-old man is hoping to spend Christmas this year with his family.

Richard DeLisi, who was sentenced in 1989 to 90 years in prison for conspiring to traffic more than 100 pounds of cannabis into the U.S. from Jamaica, could be released as early as Dec. 4 amid failing health and the worsening coronavirus pandemic, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.

He is described as the "longest-serving cannabis offender in the country" by the Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit organization working towards criminal justice reform for marijuana-related crimes. Lawyers from the Last Prisoner Project have been working pro bono to help secure DeLisi’s release from South Bay Correctional Facility in Palm Beach County, where hundreds of inmates have tested positive for the coronavirus since March.

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the drug DeLisi was convicted of conspiring to sell is now legal in 15 states, two territories and Washington, D.C. Florida, where DeLisi was convicted and sentenced, is one of 34 states with a medical cannabis program.

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