Friday, 31 July 2020

Scent of pot is insufficient cause for cops to search and arrest people, court rules

Cops cannot search and arrest people just because they smell weed, Maryland's highest court ruled unanimously. Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera wrote, "The odour of marijuana, without more, does not provide law enforcement officers with the requisite probable cause to arrest and perform a warrantless search of that person incident to the arrest."

From Growcola:

This ruling builds on a previous one made last summer by the same court, which barred police officers from arresting and searching a person based on an observation of an amount of cannabis less than 10 grams, which is below the criminal threshold according to decriminalization policy made in 2014.