The Cannabis Justice Crisis Still Haunting 2025: Parker Coleman’s 60-Year Sentence Is a National Shame

In 2025, cannabis is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Everywhere in the sense that you can buy it legally in glittery storefronts, order it for delivery like pizza, see it advertised on billboards, hear politicians brag about the tax revenue, and watch corporate executives talk about “innovation” with the same straight face Big Tobacco used to sell “healthier cigarettes.” Nowhere in the sense that the country still refuses to tell the truth about what cannabis prohibition actually was—and who it was designed to punish.

Because while the legal market keeps expanding, Parker Coleman is still sitting in federal prison serving a 60-year sentence for a cannabis case.

Sixty years.

Think about that number for more than a second. Not a five-year bid. Not a decade. Not even one of those obscene twenty-something sentences we’ve come to accept as normal in drug cases. Sixty years means “die in here.” It means your life ends behind concrete. It means a judge and a prosecutor decided your existence was worth less than the political theater of a drug war that even the government now pretends is outdated.

And let’s be clear right out of the gate: in 2025, that kind of sentence for cannabis isn’t just unfair. It’s a national embarrassment. It is a moral gut-punch. It is a flashing red siren that proves legalization has moved faster than justice, and that the country still hasn’t dealt with the human wreckage prohibition left behind.

Parker’s case is not a dusty relic from a distant era. It is not some fringe anomaly. It is a living, breathing example of how America can legalize a plant, monetize its culture, and still keep the people it caged for that plant locked away like yesterday’s garbage. His story sits right on the fault line between the shiny new cannabis economy and the brutal old drug war machinery that never stopped grinding.

Parker Coleman and the “Goldilocks” Dragnet

Parker Antron Coleman Jr. was arrested in Charlotte, North Carolina, in his early twenties during a federal crackdown called Operation Goldilocks. If the name sounds like a joke, it’s because the operation itself was treated as a numbers-driven dragnet rather than a focused public-safety effort. The operation targeted a large cannabis distribution network and swept up around seventy defendants. It wasn’t a surgical strike against violent crime. It was a wide-area blast from a federal system built to chase trophies and rack up numbers.

Parker was convicted of conspiracy to distribute cannabis, money laundering, and firearms-related charges. Now here’s where the federal government does what it does best in drug cases: it stacks charges like Legos until the sentence turns grotesque. Thirty years for the cannabis and laundering counts. Then another thirty years piled on through firearms statutes run consecutively. That’s how you get to sixty. That’s how you manufacture a life sentence without ever saying the words “life sentence.”

And if you’re wondering whether Parker was accused of harming anyone, here’s the reality that should make your stomach turn: this was a cannabis conspiracy case with no allegations of violent conduct against another person. Nobody claimed he assaulted someone. Nobody claimed he shot or physically injured another person. Nobody claimed he ran a cartel terrorizing neighborhoods. The case was built around conspiracy logic, old-school drug war narratives, and sentencing rules that were born in an era when America treated cannabis like a national security threat.

Federal conspiracy charges are a special kind of cruelty. They allow prosecutors to attach massive quantities and penalties to people without proving direct sales, without proving violence, and sometimes without proving much of anything beyond association. The defendant becomes an avatar for the “war on drugs,” and the judge becomes the delivery system for punishment that’s already preloaded into the statute.

Parker was twenty-four when all this happened. Think about that. Twenty-four is an age when most people are still figuring out who they are, still learning what responsibility looks like, still trying to make sense of what adulthood even means. The federal government didn’t just throw a sentence at him; it threw a tombstone.

The Legal Market’s Celebration, and the Prison’s Silence

Now put that sentence next to the world we live in today.

In 2025, cannabis is legal for adult use in a growing number of states and medically legal in even more. The legal market is a multi-billion-dollar machine. Investors chase it. Politicians pose in front of it. Mainstream media runs glossy lifestyle features about it. Multi-state operators scale it. Brands wrap it in wellness language and sell it to people who want better sleep, less stress, or just a good Friday night.

Meanwhile, Parker Coleman wakes up behind bars every day knowing the country has moved on without him.

That contradiction is the entire crisis. We’ve got legalization happening at street level while prohibition still holds power in the cells. We’ve got dispensaries opening beside prisons full of people who never should’ve been there in the first place. We’ve got a society that changed its mind about the plant but refused to change its mind about the people.

And I don’t want to hear that this is complicated. It’s not. The only reason people like Parker are still incarcerated is because the system doesn’t feel enough pressure to fix what it broke.

Legalization without liberation is not reform. It’s rebranding.

You can call a market “regulated,” “safe,” “professional,” whatever word helps investors sleep at night. But if the industry benefits from the same plant that destroyed people’s lives under prohibition, the industry inherits a responsibility to repair that harm. Not with PR statements. Not with half-hearted “equity initiatives.” With freedom.

Why Federal Prisoners Are Still Trapped

A lot of the public assumes legalization means release. That assumption keeps the injustice hidden in plain sight. Federal cannabis prisoners are still trapped because federal law never fully moved. Cannabis remains illegal under the Controlled Substances Act, and even when Washington talks about rescheduling, it doesn’t automatically unwind old convictions. Federal sentencing, especially for conspiracy cases, doesn’t have a built-in “oops we were wrong” button.

The drug war was designed to be sticky. Once it grabs hold of someone, it doesn’t let go easily. Mandatory minimums, charge stacking, and enhancement statutes create sentences that are intentionally hard to reverse. The system gives itself a long fuse and a short memory.

Clemency is supposed to be the escape hatch. In practice, it’s political, slow, and rarely used at scale. There is no reason Parker should be forced to rely on the whim of a presidential pen to regain the life he never should’ve lost. But that’s where we are.

In a saner country, Parker’s sentence would be unimaginable today. In many legal states, the conduct at the core of his case wouldn’t lead to prison at all. If it did, it would be measured in years, not lifetimes. The difference between Parker’s punishment and modern reality isn’t about safety. It’s about timing. He got sentenced for a version of America that the government now claims it has outgrown, but it never outgrew it for him.

The Racial and Cultural Debt We Still Haven’t Paid

Let’s talk about what everyone knows but too many people still dance around: prohibition wasn’t race-neutral, and its leftovers aren’t either.

Parker is a young Black man who was sentenced into oblivion for cannabis. At the same time, the fastest-growing segment of legal cannabis ownership in America is white-owned, venture-backed, and increasingly corporate. That’s not an accident. That’s the direct continuation of a policy architecture that targeted Black and brown communities for decades, criminalized their survival, and then handed the profit opportunity to people with capital and political insulation.

When we say “equity,” it doesn’t mean letting a few impacted folks sell pre-rolls while the boardroom stays locked. It means recognizing that the people who were punished for this plant deserve first rights to freedom and dignity, not last place in a market built on their backs.

If the legal cannabis industry wants to claim legitimacy, it has to deal with that debt. Not five years from now. Not after another convention panel. Right now, while people are still inside.

Parker’s Sentence Is Not an Outlier

If you’re reading this and thinking, “That’s horrifying, but surely it’s rare,” I need you to zoom out. Parker Coleman is one name in a long list.

There are thousands of people still incarcerated across the country for cannabis-related offenses or cases rooted in cannabis convictions. Some are federal cases like Parker’s. Many are state cases where legalization arrived too late or didn’t come with real resentencing pathways. Even in legal states, cannabis arrests continue. They hit the same communities they’ve always hit. The only difference is that now the arrests happen in the shadow of storefronts selling the same product.

That’s why this moment is so disturbing. We’ve got a society that agreed cannabis shouldn’t have been illegal, while still allowing people to suffer the full punishment of that illegality. That should be unacceptable to anyone who claims to be part of cannabis culture.

Because here’s the truth: cannabis culture is not an industry trend. It’s a community that survived criminalization. It’s a lineage of people who risked everything for a plant that helped them cope, heal, create, and resist. Many of those people are still paying the price—long after the country decided to cash in.

What Justice Actually Looks Like

Justice for Parker Coleman isn’t a symbolic gesture. It isn’t a reduction from sixty years to forty years. It isn’t “good behavior credits.” Justice is clemency. Release. Reentry. A real chance to live the life he was denied.

In 2025, the government cannot keep pretending these sentences are reasonable. If cannabis is now recognized as a commodity with medical value and social acceptance, then continuing to incarcerate people for it is pure state-sanctioned hypocrisy. You don’t get to legalize the product and keep the punishment.

The simplest way to say it is also the most honest: Parker Coleman should not serve another day in prison for cannabis. Not one.

The Industry’s Moral Test Is Happening Right Now

Every era has a moment where people get to choose what side of history they’re on. For cannabis, that moment isn’t some far-off future. It’s right now.

The industry can become a genuine instrument of repair, rooted in justice and cultural truth. Or it can become a polished continuation of the drug war, where profits soar and prisoners remain invisible.

If you’re a consumer, your dollars matter. If you’re a brand, your voice matters. If you’re an operator, your policies matter. If you’re an investor, your pressure matters. Sitting out is a choice too, and it’s a choice that helps the system stay comfortable.

We cannot keep celebrating legalization while ignoring incarceration. That’s not reform; that’s selective memory. That’s the cannabis version of building a mansion on stolen land and calling it progress.

What would it say about America if we let Parker die in prison while dispensary grand openings keep happening? What would it say about this industry if it can’t fight for the people whose suffering made legalization inevitable? What would it say about all of us if we’re willing to enjoy cannabis freedom while pretending other people don’t deserve the same thing?

I’m not interested in that kind of victory. None of us should be.

The Outrage Is the Point

Some people will read this and say I’m being too harsh. That I’m being “emotional.” Good. This situation deserves harshness. It deserves emotion. It deserves outrage.

Because outrage is what you feel when you realize the country is still punishing people for a plant it’s now selling. Outrage is what you feel when you understand the drug war didn’t end; it just got a new paint job. Outrage is what you feel when you see a young man trapped under an old law while the new economy takes selfies on top of the same plant.

In 2025, the outrage isn’t optional. It’s the only sane response.

Parker Coleman’s sentence is a shame on the federal system. It’s a shame on the political class that keeps dodging real reform. And if we’re being honest, it’s a shame on the cannabis industry every time it talks about “community” without fighting for the people still locked up.

We don’t get to call this a movement if we leave our people behind.

We don’t get to call this justice if freedom is reserved for the people with licenses and capital.

And we sure as hell don’t get to call this progress while a sixty-year cannabis sentence stands untouched in a federal cell.

Parker Coleman should be home. The people still serving time for cannabis cases should be home. The country has no moral excuse left.

Free Parker Coleman. Free them all.

Because until that happens, legalization is just a costume change for prohibition—and nobody should be celebrating that.

Freedom Grow exists for the exact reason Parker Coleman’s story should hit a nerve. It’s a grassroots, all-volunteer nonprofit created to support cannabis prisoners and their families right now—through commissary help, books, family assistance, and real re-entry support. While the political system drags its feet and the legal market cashes checks, Freedom Grow keeps people alive, connected, and supported. This isn’t charity for optics. It’s community taking care of the community, with donations going directly to prisoner support and re-entry needs.

I’m not saying this from the sidelines. I’m Bill Levers, CEO of Freedom Grow, and my brother Jeff Levers serves as COO. We stepped into these roles because legalization without liberation is a lie, and we’re not interested in letting the industry move on while people are still stuck inside for cannabis charges. If you believe this plant should never have cost anyone their life or freedom, you can learn more or support the work at freedomgrow.org/donate.

Case details referenced in this essay are drawn from federal court records, including the indictment and sentencing transcript.

This article is an opinion piece from an external, unpaid contributor. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of High Times. The article has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

<p>The post The Cannabis Justice Crisis Still Haunting 2025: Parker Coleman’s 60-Year Sentence Is a National Shame first appeared on High Times.</p>