As your administration draws to a close and a new regime known for their capriciousness and cruelty makes ready to erase your work, we ask that you honor the promise you made in 2020.

That no one should be in prison for cannabis.

We believed you then and those of us who were free have you our votes.

Now, none of us are free and many will be in prison long after you’ve passed unless you take decisive action and intervene today.

I know your decision making process is laborious and subjected to numerous layers of review and debate.

You must abandon this new. There is no time. The last hour to act is hutling forth and for many of us after there will be noght but the sepulchural silence of the tomb.

We have been years without seeing our loved ones holding our children, hugging our parents and kissing our wives.

We cannot work or contribute. We just rot. We die a day at a time through the fractional murder of the cage.

And we do so for a crime that is a crime no longer.

Society has made its decision far before you or congress could manage to do so.

With every new dispensary and grow that opens and every state that legalizes it rebukes the antiquated, racist, and ludicrous laws that keep us in chains.

Now it has come time to make good on your word and those of your surrogates and free us all.

With one stroke of the pen you could end a pointless war that has ruined so many lives for nothing.

I received 5 years in prison on my first arrest for an offense that CEOs fly private jets to Washington to lobby your administration and congress for permission to commit. Under the law, myself and the other 2000+ are no different than them. But they make millions and live like pharaohs while we starve and sicken in conditions that would appal anyone who holds our nation to be the greatest on earth.

I speak not just as a prisoner. But as a son who has disappointed their father and wants a chance to make it right.

My dad grew up on foodstamps in a ghetto in Upper Manhattan. His father and mother were Holocaust refugees who fled Germany and Austria to try and create better lives. My father watched his father drown in front of him at 11 years old and became the man of his house. Through genius, grit, and determination he made himself a multimillionaire with a degree from the University of Chicago. Him and my mom did all they could for me and arguably I threw it all away.

I know you have a son who has disappointed you greatly but whom you still love unconditionally. So I know you feel some of the same things my father and I do. He probably feels like he could never measure up you and that he’s let you down and regrets a lot.

I know he’s also scared to go to prison. I know I was. And I won’t lie to you or him. That fear is justified. I’ve been stabbed and tortured in here. It’s a crucible of pain and a human warehouse. Not a place for rehabilitation.

I don’t know if you can or will pardon him. I understand either way. I don’t deign to know your mind or your burdens.

But I know how he feels. Somewhat. And how you do about him.

My father isn’t the president. Nor are any of the other cannabis prisoner’s parents in a position to free their children with the stroke of a pen.

But you can.

Society has spoken loudly.

This war is over.

Give us our lives back and you’ll create thousands of passionate surrogates in the very communities your party has been accused of leaving behind.

Ignore us and it will sound and feel like more of the same.

Either way what you do with us will be part of your legacy.

I ask you to chose boldness and mercy.

Be what this moment demands.

Show the nation who you are the values you profess to embody.

Compassion
Understanding
Mercy
Progress

I have never seen or held my daughter.

My wife is alone with her.

Please let me and so many others come home to those we love.

Daniel Muessig
61770-509
Fort Dix