Lance Gloor

Incarcerated: 2016   |  Sentence: 10 years

In 2016, Lance Gloor was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison plus five years of probation. Gloor – the operator of four medical marijuana dispensaries in Washington state, where medical marijuana has been legal for more than two decades – was charged with conspiracy to distribute and manufacture marijuana. Gloor’s family is working with The Weldon Project in hopes of getting Lance’s sentence commuted. 

Washington state has paved the way for marijuana legalization.


In 1998, it was the first state to allow marijuana for medical use; and in 2012 it became the first U.S. state to legalize recreational use of marijuana and the second to allow recreational marijuana sales. Lance Gloor assumed he was safe operating a chain of four medical marijuana dispensaries in Washington state. He was wrong. 


Gloor was arrested by federal agents and charged with conspiracy to distribute and manufacture marijuana. In 2016 he was convicted, resulting in a 10-year sentence in federal prison. 



Gloor’s trial lasted a mere four days. His defense attorney argued: “Hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals in this state engaged in roughly identical conduct – distributing marijuana under the umbrella of ‘medical marijuana’ – during the same time period when Mr. Gloor and his co-defendants were alleged to be involved in a conspiracy. The vast majority of those individuals were never arrested or prosecuted, carrying out their conspiratorial conduct in the open and with both the tacit and active endorsement of local government officials. The inherent disparity between what happens to those the government chose to prosecute and those it did not is extreme and should be considered in determining a just sentence.” 


Weldon Angelos, the president and co-founder of The Weldon Project, has added Gloor’s name to a list of individuals his organization intends to seek clemency for by engaging the Biden/Harris administration


“Today, there are too many people like Lance serving federal prison sentences for state-legal cannabis activities,” said Angelos. “We are hopeful President Biden can recognize the hypocrisy of prior administrations and the waste of federal resources in keeping these individuals in prison and bring Lance and others like him home.”   


Lance and his family remain hopeful the Biden/Harris administration will take action. 

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