By Katie Hyson / KPBS / August 8, 2023
Megain McCall tried hard to forget the day her life changed forever. It was around 2009, she said, when she was 28 years old. She was driving from San Diego with her aunt and mother to see her dying brother in Texas. At a Texas checkpoint, a patrol dog signaled the car. “I remember being super confident because I know I didn’t have anything,” McCall said.
But an officer found a bag of marijuana candy — her mother’s, she said. Marijuana — even medical — wasn’t legal in Texas. “I wasn’t going to let her go to jail,” McCall said, “so, I took claim of it.” When the sheriff came to pick her up, she said she would be charged with a felony.
McCall had hoped to become an engineer at Qualcomm where her brother worked. But with the cannabis charge on her record, she found it nearly impossible to get jobs outside of kitchens. The yes-or-no felony checkbox left no room for the specifics of her story.
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