"I saw it first-hand in my experience as a public defender," said Jackie Gosdigian, a senior policy counsel at Brooklyn Defender Services. "It could be something as small as a 'roach' that was found on the ground, and then the police start using that as an excuse to literally bring in six or seven young people to the precinct."

Gosdigian said the 2019 legislation was a half-baked reform, an attempt to reduce the number of people incarcerated for marijuana possession without a clear goal to fix the causes of racial disparities in enforcement.

"It just left that window still open for police to use marijuana as an excuse, as a pretext, to stop and harass communities of color," she said.

The MRTA helped turn that tide. People aged 21 and over are now allowed to walk around with up to three ounces of marijuana. They can keep up to five pounds of marijuana at home and grow up to six plants.

View the full Law360 article, here.