Sydney Sigler says her probation officer shows up at her house randomly to confirm she lives where she claims. She’s not allowed to leave McLennan County, where she lives with her husband and two young kids. She’s also drug tested regularly and is not allowed to drink alcohol or be at bars.

This is life on probation. Her crime: getting caught with what court records say was .1 ounce of marijuana. On Christmas Day 2013, she was sitting outside a friend's house in her car. The vehicle's door was open — which records say is what prompted a police officer to first approach her.

Inside her car were rolling papers and a small amount of marijuana, according to the arresting officer's account. Sigler said she wasn't smoking at the time and arrest records make no mention of her being impaired or trying to drive while high.

Sigler, then 21, hadn't married or had kids yet. She was living with her parents and said she kept the marijuana — which she smoked recreationally — in her car to hide it from her mom and dad.

“The cop was basically acting like I was a drug lord or something,” Sigler recalled of the 2013 incident. “I pleaded with him and told him, ‘I’ve never been pulled over in my life, and I’ve never been in trouble. Please just take it and let me go.’”

“He told me ‘absolutely not,’ and that I was under arrest.”

She’s been paying the consequences, emotionally and financially, ever since. But if she lived in another state — or even another part of Texas — the last few years of her life may have gone differently.

According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, roughly 379,000 Texans have been arrested for possessing 2 ounces or less of marijuana in the past five years. Those criminal charges are for being caught with small amounts of a drug that an estimated 128 million American adults have tried — and that 55 million U.S. residents regularly use, according to a 2017 poll.

Ten states and the District of Columbia have legalized small amounts of marijuana for personal use. Thirteen other states have made possessing small amounts a civil rather than a criminal infraction, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In Texas, possession of any amount of marijuana is illegal.

Still, there’s growing public support and bipartisan backing at the Capitol for lessening — or ditching — criminal penalties for what are currently low-level offenses. And some local court officials are already backing off of pursuing charges against some first-time offenders.

Lawmakers this year are pushing a bevy of bills that range from reducing the criminal penalties for those found with small amounts of marijuana to eliminating those criminal penalties altogether. But there remains some lingering political pushback from conservative hardliners and law enforcement groups who fear decriminalizing marijuana will increase crime rates and eventually lead to the legalization of other drugs.

Stuck in the middle of the political fray are people like Sigler, who live in counties where prosecutors still take on first-time marijuana offenses. So since her arrest, Sigler estimates she’s spent more than $5,000 on lawyer and court fees, drug tests and probation costs.

“I am a stay at home mother of two and I am by no means a criminal,” she said. “I have been drug tested multiple times, years after my arrest, which is also expensive and violating. This situation has not only drained my financial savings, but it has also been a humiliating experience. I have been treated like a serious criminal by law enforcement.”

Cases like Sigler's are one reason state Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, filed House Bill 63. His bill would replace the criminal penalty for people caught with an ounce or less of marijuana and replace it with a civil fine of up to $250. Only those fined more than three times would face misdemeanor criminal charges.

“When people are convicted of crimes like this they could lose their driver’s license and they’re going to have a harder time finding a job or finding an apartment,” Moody said. “All those penalties far exceed the gravity of the crime they’re charged with.

“This is about right-sizing the penalty for doing something that in many states is now legal.”

In urban counties, a relaxed approach

Even as Moody’s bill begins what is likely to be an uphill battle at the Capitol, several Texas district attorneys have already pledged not to prosecute first-time, low-level offenders in their respective counties.

In Dallas County, newly-elected District Attorney John Creuzot said his office is currently declining prosecution for first-time marijuana possession offenders. He said he wants to free his prosecutors up to go after suspects who are accused of violent crimes or infractions that often portend to future violence.

“I don’t know of any research that shows having small amounts of marijuana has any bearing on community safety — certainly not violent crime,” Creuzot said.

Harris County prosecutors, meanwhile, offer a diversion program that gives residents caught with less than four ounces of marijuana the option to take a $130, four-hour class that focuses on decision making and risky behavior. If the class is taken within 90 days, participants will not have criminal charges pressed against them.

Since the program's implementation in March 2017, more than 7,000 people have gone that route as opposed to “the jailhouse or the courthouse,” said Dane Schiller, a spokesman for the Harris County District Attorney's Office.

“Thousands of people have not spent a night in jail, not been booked, fingerprinted, prosecuted and saddled with a record that could shadow them for the rest of their lives,” Schiller said.