Marijuana Charges in San Antonio

Get Resilient Advocacy for Marijuana Charges

While nationally, the recent trend has been to relax marijuana laws, this has not been the case in Texas. Where legalization for medicinal and recreational purposes is becoming the norm, Texas has made little effort to bring its laws in line with society's acceptance of marijuana.

Potential Penalties for Possession

Charges are distinguished by their classifications as either misdemeanors or felonies, felonies being significantly more serious to your freedom and ancillary penalties.

The state of Texas arranges charges in the following manner:

• Less than two ounces: Class B Misdemeanor, up to 6 months in county jail and a fine that can reach $2,000
• Between two and four ounces: Class A Misdemeanor, up to 1 year in county jail and a $4,000 fine
• Above five pounds: Felony charge, at least 2-10 years in prison, and fines up to $10,000

In other words, Possession of Marijuana is never a fine only offense in Texas. Even if you are a resident of another state where you obtained the marijuana legally, possessing marijuana while in Texas opens you up to criminal consequences.

Additional Consequences of a Conviction

The state of Texas is notoriously hard on drug possession, likely because of our close proximity to an international drug distribution and trafficking organization. Regardless, it takes strong defense to reduce or drop these charges, otherwise lives can change drastically.

Getting arrested for marijuana puts you at risk for:

• A driver's license suspension
• Loss of government benefits
• An effect on a Child Protective Services (CPS) investigation or child custody proceeding.

The penalties are even more severe for possession in a Drug-Free Zone, such as a school, and especially so in possession of concentrated THC, such as in hash brownies or similar products.

Fighting Hard on Your Behalf

The only leniency the State of Texas has enacted involves allowing police officers the ability to write you a ticket for a marijuana offense rather than arresting you; however, in practice this happens very rarely. While first time offenders can sometimes be offered deferred adjudication probation or pre-trial diversion, which allow you to keep the arrest off of your record to some extent, you need a skilled criminal defense lawyer to convince the prosecutor and the judge that your record is worth keeping clean.

Marijuana possession cases usually are decided on legal procedural issues regarding the legality of the search that yielded the marijuana, so you need a lawyer that is intimately familiar with the recent case law regarding illegal searches and seizures.

Contact the Law Office of Roberto Ambrosino, PLLC for a San Antonio marijuana possession attorney that will treat your case with the seriousness it deserves.