Trump commuted two long federal weed sentences — and Mike Tyson says he wants more

President Trump commuted the sentences of Kevin Harden and Jerry Haymon on September 3, ending Harden's 30-year federal sentence for conspiracy to distribute marijuana (handed down in 2013) and Haymon's 10-year mandatory minimum for the same charge (from 2020, with Haymon serving his final year in home confinement). Both commutations were part of a larger clemency batch — 23 pardons and 6 commutations — issued the same day.

Boxer Mike Tyson had written a clemency letter backing both men's applications, and after the commutations went through he thanked Trump publicly: "No one should lose decades of their life for nonviolent cannabis offenses," he said, adding he hopes "this is only the beginning for those still waiting to rebuild their lives." Tyson also credited Weldon Angelos and The Weldon Project, an advocacy group that has pushed federal marijuana clemency cases for years.

Commutations like these move case by case, decided at the president's discretion rather than through any systematic review — there's no public tally of how many people are still serving comparable federal marijuana sentences, and no guarantee more commutations follow. It's a sharp contrast with rescheduling, which at least has a formal administrative process, however slow, working through it in parallel.

For an industry that likes to cite "the end of the war on marijuana" in its own messaging, this is a reminder that the human cost of the old regime hasn't fully caught up with the policy shift — people are still locked up for conduct that's legal commerce in half the country, and getting them out still runs through one-off, case-by-case decisions.