On a Sunday evening in November 2015, Lori Mathes was in the kitchen of her gray and blue bungalow in Onawa, a small town in western Iowa. She was talking on the phone with her mother, she recalls, when four police officers barged in with their guns drawn. They said they were looking for her ex-husband, who had stopped by for a visit.
During the raid, police found a small amount — two grams — of marijuana belonging to Mathes, according to a police report. They charged her with felony drug possession; a conviction could land her in prison.
