A NEW Jersey judge has refused to lower bail in a ganja possession case against reggae legend Peter Tosh’s son.

According to the www.nj.com website, lawyers for 33-year-old Jawara G McIntosh of Dorchester, Massachusetts, failed to convince Superior Court judge John A Conte that a “family bond” would “hold him just as securely” as a $200,000 bail that has kept him in jail since June.

The hearing took place last Monday in New Jersey.

A video presented by the defence included interviews with McIntosh’s daughter, Selecta Jah Tosh, and his sister Niame McIntosh, a Boston public school teacher.

In June, police in Mahwah, New Jersey pulled over McIntosh’s 2013 Nissan Maxima for “recklessly cutting off other motorists on Route 17.”

They said he did not have a drivers license, had open bottles of alcohol on the front seat and that two pieces of luggage containing over 65 pounds of ganja was found in the trunk.

New Jersey police report that Mcintosh and his passenger, 23-year-old Carlotta Z Leslie, also of Dorchester, “denied any knowledge that the marijuana was in the vehicle.”

Both were arrested on charges of marijuana possession with the intent to distribute the drug. McIntosh also was charged with two counts of driving under the influence of drugs, driving with a suspended license, improper passing and having an open container of alcohol in a vehicle.

Jawara G McIntosh is a singer known as Tosh 1. Like his father, he is an advocate for making marijuana use legal.

Peter Tosh was killed by gunmen in September, 1987 at his home in St Andrew. He was 42 years-old.