Tampa, FL: Police may no longer initiate motor vehicle searches solely based on smelling cannabis, according to a ruling issued by judges on Florida’s 2nd District Court of Appeal.
In the Court’s majority opinion, judges acknowledged that the use of cannabis in certain circumstances is legally regulated statewide. Therefore, state and local police can no longer presume that the odor of marijuana is, by definition, probable cause of a crime.
The majority opined, “By defining and legalizing discrete forms of cannabis on bases that are manifestly not discernable by smell, … the mere odor of cannabis standing alone no longer can make it clearly or immediately apparent that the substance is contraband without conducting some further search.” The ruling is anticipated to be appealed to the state Supreme Court.
Their decision is consistent with a recent ruling by Florida’s 5th District Court of Appeal, finding that police officers may not initiate a warrantless search of a motor vehicle based solely on an alert from a specially trained police dog.
Courts in several states where cannabis is legal for either medical or adult-use purposes – including Delaware, Maryland, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Vermont – have also determined that the odor of marijuana emanating from a motor vehicle is not by itself sufficient grounds to justify a warrantless search.
In a separate ruling earlier this year, judges on Florida’s 2nd District Court of Appeal determined that police cannot solely rely on the “appearance” of cannabis as evidence of a crime because “legal hemp and illegal cannabis are indistinguishable by appearance, texture, and odor.”
The case is Williams v. Florida.