Connect with us

Colorado Court Rules Cannabis Smell does Not Equal Right to Search

Published

on

photo by Einar Jørgen Haraldseid

The cannabis-friendly state of Colorado just ruled that a cannabis odor is not probable cause for a vehicle to be searched.

According to the Daily Sentinel, based out of Grand Junction, Colorado, a three-judge panel in a Colorado Court of Appeals ruled against the right to search last week. This includes any smell picked up by a drug-sniffing dog, not just a whiff caught by a police officer.

The ruling is based on the fact that if cannabis is “sniffed out” in Colorado, it could be perfectly legal. “Because Amendment 64 legalized possession for personal use of one ounce or less of marijuana by persons 21 years of age or older in Colorado, it is no longer accurate to say, at least as a matter of state law, that an alert by a dog which can detect marijuana—but not specific amounts—can reveal only the presence of ‘contraband,’” Judge Daniel Dailey wrote in the ruling, which he passed last week, along with Judges Michael Berger and Jerry Jones.

“A dog sniff could result in an alert with respect to something for which, under Colorado law, a person has a legitimate expectation of privacy,” the ruling added. “Because a dog sniff of a vehicle could infringe upon a legitimate expectation of privacy solely under state law, that dog sniff should now be considered a ‘search’ for purposes of (the amendment) where the occupants are 21 years or older.”

This ruling came was the result of a case where a defendant had his car searched because of a cannabis smell. It was found that he was in possession of a controlled substance, but it was not a legal search, since the initial inquiry was based on the smell of cannabis.

This is a major victory for even more cannabis acceptance in one of the most openly cannabis-friendly places in the U.S.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *