In 1977, "President Jimmy Carter, in his first day in office, fulfilled a campaign promise by granting unconditional pardons to hundreds of thousands of men who had evaded the draft during the Vietnam War by fleeing the country or by failing to register (Andrew Glass, Politico)."
It's widely acknowledged that the so-called war on drugs has been a miserable failure. It's as acknowledged that the nation's incarceration rate - the world's highest - is obscene.
Political will - and the for-profit prison industry, big pharma - aside, what's to stop President Obama from unconditionally pardoning low-level, non-violent drug 'offenders' and expunging their records? Then ordering the Justice Department to develop protocols for reversing incarceration as penalty for these so-called crimes? The benefits - the lives saved; unclogging the courts and prisons; law enforcement reduction; the political good will - are incalculable.
(The U.S. has no moral standing barking out human rights demands with this plague upon our house. Senators Rubio and Menendez, among others, would do well focusing on domestic institutionalized human rights abuse before attempting to sabotage restored relations with Cuba.)
When better than Independence Day to hold in our thoughts those wrongly incarcerated?