One of the easiest ways to find yourself speaking to police officers is to hear, “we smelled marijuana.” That one line and have you standing outside your car, hands on the hood, while police officers tear your car up. Colorado is making the move to halt that all together.
Per High Times
According to the Daily Sentinel, a three-judge panel determined last Thursday that law enforcement officers needed more than a weed-sniffing hound to search a person’s vehicle without permission.
The verdict, which establishes a new precedent in drug cases, could force the state to put its drug dogs through “extinction training” in order to teach them that the presence of cannabis no longer indicates criminal activity.
“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,’” wrote Judge Daniel Dailey on behalf of the panel.
“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,” Dailey continued. “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.”
The verdict stems from a 2015 case in which Craig Police Cpl. Bryan Gonzales pulled over a truck driven by a local resident by the name of Kevin McKnight. This was the second traffic stop in two months that Craig police conducted against McKnight to bust him for illegal drugs.
