California Cops Have To Treat Marijuana In Cars Differently After New Supreme Court Ruling

*“To constitute a violation…marijuana in a vehicle must be of a usable
quantity, in imminently usable condition, and readily accessible to an
occupant.”*

*By Nigel Duara, CalMatters*

*This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their
newsletters.*

When it comes to impaired driving and the state’s open container law, a
rolled and ready joint is more like a can of beer in giving police cause to
search a car than a few crumbs of marijuana, according to the California
Supreme Court.

The court’s reasoning: You can smoke a joint and drink a beer, but loose
marijuana isn’t readily consumable.

In a ruling handed down on Thursday, the high court ruled that police must
find marijuana in a condition that’s ready to be smoked if they are going
to charge a driver with an open container violation.

“We hold that at a minimum, to constitute a violation of [the open
container law], marijuana in a vehicle must be of a usable quantity, in
imminently usable condition, and readily accessible to an occupant,” wrote
Associate Justice Goodwin Liu in a unanimous opinion.

Loose marijuana found on a car’s floorboards is like spilled beer, the
court ruled.

“In assessing whether the marijuana is imminently usable or readily
accessible, courts should consider whether the marijuana could be consumed
with minimal effort by an occupant of the vehicle,” the court found.

The ruling reversed a magistrate judge, trial court and the California
Court of Appeal, which had all agreed that the loose marijuana constituted
an open container violation and gave police cause to search a vehicle.

Recreational marijuana has been legal in California since 2016 when voters
passed an initiative allowing it. It remains illegal under federal law.

The case at issue was out of Sacramento, where police officers stopped a
car and searched it, finding 0.36 grams of marijuana crumbs on the
floorboards of the backseat, along with a tray on which to roll joints. The
driver hadn’t been driving erratically, her registration and license were
unblemished and she had no warrants out.

“No officer suggested he was concerned that [the driver and passenger]
could have somehow, while riding in the front of the car, collected the
scattered bits of marijuana from the rear floor behind [the passenger] for
imminent consumption,” the court ruled. “Nor was there evidence of
paraphernalia, such as matches, lighters, rolling papers, blunts, or
vaporizers, that could facilitate the marijuana’s consumption.”

The Supreme Court also found that the officers did not have probable cause
to search the car in the first place. The police had argued that the
driver’s nervousness and possession of a rolling tray was sufficient to
search the car, an argument the court rejected.

*This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished
under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.*

The post California Cops Have To Treat Marijuana In Cars Differently After
New Supreme Court Ruling appeared first on Marijuana Moment.