Sharpton: “Moving Marijuana To Schedule III Is Not Justice — It Is A Half Measure”
Photos: Wikimedia Commons New York, NY (April 23, 2026) – Rev. Al Sharpton, Founder and President of the National Action Network (NAN), today responded to the Trump Administration’s decision to reschedule marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act. While acknowledging the move as a long-overdue acknowledgment that decades of federal marijuana policy were excessive and unjust, Rev. Sharpton made clear that rescheduling alone falls profoundly short of justice. Marijuana remains a controlled substance under federal law, and the people who were imprisoned, prosecuted, and had their lives destroyed under the old classification are still living with those consequences today. For decades, the so-called War on Drugs was waged disproportionately against Black and brown communities, turning marijuana possession into a pipeline to prison for generations of Americans who committed no violent crime. While others profited freely and built billion-dollar industries around the very same substance, Black men and women were arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and incarcerated at staggering rates. Their lives were derailed. Their families were torn apart. And their futures were stolen. This is the government lowering its voice after decades of shouting, while leaving the damage it caused untouched. “Moving marijuana to Schedule III is not justice — it is a half measure,” said Rev. Al Sharpton. “The federal government has spent decades locking up Black and brown people for a substance it has now quietly decided is less dangerous than it claimed. But the people who paid the price for that lie are still paying it. Justice demands more than a change in classification. President Trump must issue full presidential pardons for every individual imprisoned on marijuana-related charges, and every single one of their records must be expunged. Not some. Not most. Every one. You do not get to spend decades destroying lives over a policy you are now walking back, and call it progress without making those people whole. That is not justice, that is a reclassification of injustice.” Rev. Sharpton and the National Action Network are calling on President Trump to finish what was started. Federal decriminalization, removing marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act entirely, so that no Americans can ever again be imprisoned under federal law for it. Once that is done, the work of repair must begin. President Trump must issue full presidential pardons for every individual currently incarcerated for marijuana-related offenses, and the records of every American impacted by these unjust convictions must be expunged completely. These individuals have paid an immoral price for a system that was never applied equally, and was, by the government’s own admission, designed that way. They deserve to have their freedom restored and their names cleared in entirety.
Black News 
Photos: Wikimedia Commons
New York, NY (April 23, 2026) – Rev. Al Sharpton, Founder and President of the National Action Network (NAN), today responded to the Trump Administration’s decision to reschedule marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act. While acknowledging the move as a long-overdue acknowledgment that decades of federal marijuana policy were excessive and unjust, Rev. Sharpton made clear that rescheduling alone falls profoundly short of justice. Marijuana remains a controlled substance under federal law, and the people who were imprisoned, prosecuted, and had their lives destroyed under the old classification are still living with those consequences today.
For decades, the so-called War on Drugs was waged disproportionately against Black and brown communities, turning marijuana possession into a pipeline to prison for generations of Americans who committed no violent crime. While others profited freely and built billion-dollar industries around the very same substance, Black men and women were arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and incarcerated at staggering rates. Their lives were derailed. Their families were torn apart. And their futures were stolen. This is the government lowering its voice after decades of shouting, while leaving the damage it caused untouched.
“Moving marijuana to Schedule III is not justice — it is a half measure,” said Rev. Al Sharpton. “The federal government has spent decades locking up Black and brown people for a substance it has now quietly decided is less dangerous than it claimed. But the people who paid the price for that lie are still paying it. Justice demands more than a change in classification. President Trump must issue full presidential pardons for every individual imprisoned on marijuana-related charges, and every single one of their records must be expunged. Not some. Not most. Every one. You do not get to spend decades destroying lives over a policy you are now walking back, and call it progress without making those people whole. That is not justice, that is a reclassification of injustice.”
Rev. Sharpton and the National Action Network are calling on President Trump to finish what was started. Federal decriminalization, removing marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act entirely, so that no Americans can ever again be imprisoned under federal law for it. Once that is done, the work of repair must begin. President Trump must issue full presidential pardons for every individual currently incarcerated for marijuana-related offenses, and the records of every American impacted by these unjust convictions must be expunged completely. These individuals have paid an immoral price for a system that was never applied equally, and was, by the government’s own admission, designed that way. They deserve to have their freedom restored and their names cleared in entirety.
