Crime & Safety
Smell of Pot Doesn't Warrant Car Search, Mass. Supreme Court Rules
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled Wednesday that the smell of raw marijuana does not give police the authority to search a vehicle.
The state Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday made a key ruling that eliminates police officers’ authority to search a vehicle if they smell raw marijuana.
In 2011, the court ruled that the smell of burnt marijuana coming from a vehicle cannot justify a police search. Its reasoning was that the smell of burnt pot does not mean someone has a criminal amount of the drug in his or her vehicle.
The court provided similar reasoning regarding the smell of raw, or unburnt, marijuana.
“The strength of a smell is ... at best a dubious means for reliably detecting the presence of a criminal amount of marijuana,” Justice Barbara Lenk wrote. “(The smell of unburnt marijuana) points only to the presence of some marijuana, not necessarily a criminal amount.”
The court’s decision applied to the cases of Matthew Overmyer and Anthony Craan, who were arrested in 2012 and 2010, respectively, after officers said they smelled raw marijuana in their vehicles.
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