Jacob Lavoro and Kevin Ludlow posing at a local dinner. Jacob is currently facing up to 99 years in prison for baking THC brownies in Williamson County, Texas

Many of you have probably heard about the 19-year-old kid from Round Rock, Texas that is facing up to 99 years in prison for allegedly baking and selling pot brownies. That's him standing next to me in the photo.

The Libertarian Party of Williamson County has been working with Jacob and his family in an effort to help him with his current legal nightmare. The reason he is facing this kind of prison sentence is due to the fact that the district attorney has thus far chosen to weigh the entire amount of material confiscated and declare that the weight of the "illegal substance". Of course this is patently absurd. Included in this weight were eggs, flour, water, chocolate, even the glass bowl, and likely just a few grams of THC.

I have been calling on all Texas State Legislators to speak out against this kind of inhumanity. We are all victims of a vicious state apparatus when this kind of prosecution comes to light. Not only is this a victimless crime, but the situation has been publicly fabricated and few inside of the state seem to care very much at all. It's simply not possible that a district attorney cannot conclude of her own intelligence that there were not several pounds of THC in Jacob's Betty Crocker concoction.

Furthermore, what possible sense does it make to ruin the life of a 19-year-old young man? He'll forever be marked a criminal and if he does serve time, society will be paying for him while simultaneously loosing out on any productive value he would bring to the community (not to mention contributions to the tax base).

As a State Representative I would absolutely love to get involved in situations like this at ground zero. I would proudly attend court proceedings and use whatever influence I could as a legislator to sway an opinion of the court towards a sensible outcome.