President Barack Obama issued 78 pardons Monday, more than doubling the number he has issued since taking office and shedding the superlative of being the most ungenerous full-term president since John Adams, who lost a re-election bid more than 200 years ago.

Obama also shortened the sentences of 153 people as part of a clemency effort largely benefiting drug convicts that was launched in 2014.

A large number of the pardon recipients were convicted of drug crimes long ago, including 11 marijuana offenders, 10 people whose cases involved methamphetamine and eight involving cocaine. The list contained no household names.

A Tennessee doctor who in 1990 was fired and jailed by the Air Force for shoplifting received a pardon, as did a woman whose prison sentence was commuted by President Bill Clinton in 2000 after she was convicted of participating in a drug operation run by her boyfriend's father and employing her relatives.

“I had to fight back tears. It’s been a long time,” says Steve Moon of Dallas, who received one of the pardons. “I learned to live without certain rights that I lost and it blows me away.”

Moon served 50 months in prison after a 1991 conviction for possessing phenylacetic acid, which is used to make methamphetamine. After leaving prison, he started a successful air conditioning business and has performed prison ministry work.

“When I got out, I felt like I had a black cloud over me,” he says. He couldn't do business with some major corporations and could no longer hunt with a gun.

Moon says he plans to buy a gun at some point but intends to be very careful to comply with all government rules when he does so.

Pardons and commutations serve different purposes. Commutations – of which Obama has issued 1,176 – let people out of prison early. A pardon would also let prisoners go free, but it’s often sought to alleviate life-limiting consequences of convictions.

The White House, which has regularly heralded Obama’s sentence-commuting initiative amid a small number of pardons, said in a blog post it was “the most individual acts of clemency granted in a single day by any president in this nation’s history.”

Obama has faced sustained criticism throughout his presidency for the small number of pardons he issued, and in August he said he would leave office with "roughly" the same number of pardons issued as his predecessors.

The surge has surprised some people, however, for not being larger.

“I think it’s a little underwhelming, actually,” says political scientist and historical pardons expert P.S. Ruckman, who maintains the Power Pardon blog.

“I’m shocked he waited this long. I would have figured there would be a torrent every day until the end of the term,” he says.

With 148 pardons now issued, Obama has surpassed the number issued by President George H.W. Bush and is approaching the totals of his immediate predecessors.

President George W. Bush issued 189 pardons during his eight years in office. Bill Clinton gave 396 pardons, many as part of a final controversy-generating spasm as he left office.

Those previously pardoned by Obama included a man who shaved pennies to appear as dimes to trick vending machines and a man convicted of polluting a river with slaughterhouse waste. Four were pardoned this year as part of a prisoner swap with Iran.

It’s unclear why Obama until now has given so few pardons. Theories vary, from sluggish application processing to a fear of political consequences, such as those that faced Clinton.