By Omar Rivera

Almost daily, judges in hundreds, of municipal courts in New Jersey hear multiple cases for possession of minuscule amounts of marijuana. Due to these charges, defendants spend thousands on lawyer fees, fines and penalties, and can also face barriers to employment or be denied federal financial aid.

Meanwhile, New Jersey spends tax dollars and municipal resources - police, municipal courts, probation and drug programs - over charges likely to be expunged by the proposed new cannabis legislation.

I know this first-hand because I have been in that circumstance myself. I am a Columbia University student slated to graduate this year with a degree in psychology, with a concentration in political science, and I am also a cannabis smoker.

New Jersey lawmakers are working on a bill and the state will likely become the 11th or 12th state to legalize cannabis for recreational purposes, and estimates of potential tax benefits are in the millions. However, while legislators are putting together a bill that can pass, people - mostly black and brown - are still getting arrested by the thousands. This is a fact evident in a USA Today Network investigation that found that New Jersey marijuana users are arrested at the highest rate in the nation. Additionally, the 2018 report found that African Americans comprised 36 percent of 32,279 cannabis arrests in 2016, despite making up 12.8 percent of the general population and using cannabis at similar rates to whites.

In July 2018, state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal adjourned minor cannabis possession charges until Sept. 4, 2018. This progressive move was a response to Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, who tried to unilaterally decriminalize cannabis in his city. However, by Aug. 23, Grewal chose not to renew the order, ending the adjournment and instead leaving discretion in the hands of prosecutors.

As reported on NJ.com, the attorney general’s office would “issue guidance to New Jersey’s local, municipal and county prosecutors informing them that while marijuana possession remains illegal, they may exercise discretion and decide not to prosecute some simple possession cases.” Given the numerous cannabis possession cases heard daily, it appears that Grewal’s guidance has fallen on deaf ears.

This means defendants must come up with thousands of dollars for legal costs, and endure the repercussions of a felony on their records. It also leaves taxpayers with the expense of enforcing a law hanging on for dear life, and lastly, it will make the task of expunging possession charges — already a tough process as previously reported by NJ.com — even harder.

Therefore, it is imperative that we reach out and contact our representatives and participate at town hall and Assembly meetings to open a dialogue about this. It is clearly time for New Jersey to lighten up on cannabis prosecutions (no pun intended). We must tell policy makers to have courts put a halt to small possession prosecutions, which disproportionately target minorities, are costly to taxpayers and are counter to the direction that New Jersey is headed.

Omar Rivera, a senior at Columbia University, is formerly from New Jersey.

Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow us on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and on Facebook at NJ.com Opinion. Get the latest news updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.com’s newsletters.