Today Glass House Brands announced a $25,000 donation to continue its support of The Weldon Project’s ongoing mission to assist individuals incarcerated for nonviolent, cannabis-related offenses. The company also announced that Glass House Brands Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO Kyle Kazan has joined the Board of Directors of The Weldon Project.

The Weldon Project is a nonprofit organization co-founded by former cannabis prisoner Weldon Angelos—dedicated to both ending federal prohibition of cannabis and achieving criminal justice reform for people who are convicted of nonviolent cannabis-related offenses. The Weldon Project is an effort very near and dear to Kazan. 

“From my first meeting with him, I sensed Weldon Angelos is a very special person, driven by an intense personal commitment to right the wrongs of the War on Drugs,” Kazan told High Times. “His own experience as a federal prisoner of the drug war is the flip-side of the same destructive, misguided policy I actively enforced as a police officer in the ’90s. We share a mission to heal the unjust, unequal wounds our country has inflicted on its own citizens for decades, and we also share a view on how to accomplish that.” 

Kazan shares ethical values with the former prisoner—that no one belongs in prison for cannabis-related offenses. He recognizes the path forward can only be achieved in steps, beginning with clemency efforts and policy change.

“The very first step is to make certain that no one, absolutely no one, is incarcerated for possessing a plant,” Kazan said. “And once we have accomplished that, we face the much more challenging task of welcoming and reintegrating these people into society with expungement and wraparound support services for housing and jobs. We are building a regulated cannabis industry

Read more from our friends at High Times