“I think I smelled weed.”
Just a few words, but a few words that could mean a whole lot depending on who is saying it.
For example, if you happen to be a Black man being pulled over by the police, that might be the last thing you want to hear. It also could be the last thing you do hear.
That saying alone has been enough to justify numerous arrests all over the country. “I smelled weed,” has been used by police over the years to stop-and-frisk, detain and possibly kill a person. It all depends on what happens after they say, “I smelled weed.”
Police behavior has come, for lack of better words, under-fire as of late.
The increase of police shootings being filmed and circulated online has sparked conversations across the country about how police often go over-the-top when it comes to approaching and attempting to detain potential suspects.
Most of the videos are police using unessary force Black men. Sometimes that force has led to death.
What’s worth a discussion is how often those words, “I smelled marijuana” we’re the start of a problem.
Take for instance the tragic death of Philando Castile.
4-years ago, a 28-year-old Philando Castile was fatally shot during a traffic stop by St. Paul police officer Jeronimo Yanez.
Castile was driving with his girlfriend Diamond Reynolds and her four-year-old daughter when their vehicle was pulled over by Yanez and another officer in Falcon Heights, a suburb of Saint Paul, Minnesota
After being asked for his license and registration, Castile told Officer Yanez that he had a firearm. From there, things went left.
Yanez replied, “Don’t reach for it then”, and Castile said “I’m, I, I was reaching for…” Yanez said “Don’t pull it out”, Castile replied “I’m not pulling it out”, and Reynolds said “He’s not…” Yanez repeated “Don’t pull it out”and then shot at Castile at close range seven times, hitting him five times.
The shocking moment was caught on-camera thanks to Diamond Reynolds who recorded the entire thing.
Yanez claims the reason he stopped him is because he smelled “burnt marijuana.”
And I thought if he’s, if he has the, the guts and the audacity to smoke marijuana in front of the 5-year-old girl and risk her lungs and risk her life by giving her secondhand smoke and the front seat passenger doing the same thing then what, what care does he give about me. And, I let off the rounds and then after the rounds were off, the little girls was screaming.”
The officer who killed him was found not guilty of 2nd-degree murder and would later be let go from the St. Paul Police Department.
Despite the chaos that ensued in the state after his killing and since, not much has changed much when it comes to officers using the tried and true blue excuse of “I smelled marijuana” as a reason to detain someone.
In 2019, Officer Bau Tran was charged with homicide in the shooting of O’Shae Terry. Terry was stopped after Tran alleged he smelled marijuana.
Pensacola police shot and killed Tymar Crawford after a traffic stop that started with an officer again, smelling marijuana.
And the list goes on.
Despite cannabis being rebranded across the world as the new after-dinner cocktail safe to be used by business people and suburban housewives, police still keep Harry Anslinger era of demonizing cannabis alive and kicking,
Leaning on the notion that cannabis use can make African-American’s more aggressive, police approach any stops where cannabis use may have been in play as if anything can happen at any minute. Even Castile’s killer used that same fear in his defense.
With half the country legalizing cannabis in one way or another, you would think that old ideas about marijuana making Black’s aggressive and violent would have been put to bed.
That stigma that still applies to African-American’s and is what allows for police to justify profiling. More times than not, that profiling has led to violence at the hands of the police.
Despite African Americans making up 13% of the population, we are killed by police at more than twice the rate of white Americans.
Many of those involve the implied use or possession of marijuana.
In light of those numbers, the backlash against policies that allow officers to use something as simple as “I smell marijuana” as a reason to detain someone has been on the rise.
In 2019, Bronx Judge April Newbauer laid out a scathing opinion about police using marijuana as a reason for a traffic stop.
“The time has come to reject the canard of marijuana emanating from nearly every vehicle subject to a traffic stop,” Judge Newbaurer wrote in a decision in a case involving a gun the police discovered in car they had searched after claiming to have smelled marijuana.
“So ubiquitous has police testimony about odors from cars become that it should be subject to a heightened level of scrutiny if it is to supply the grounds for a search.”
“Sniff and search” is said to be no longer in use in the 33 states where cannabis has been made legal.
In Massachusetts, the states highest court has said repeatedly that the smell of marijuana alone cannot justify a warrantless vehicle search.
The Vermont state Supreme Court ruled in January that the “faint odor of burnt marijuana” didn’t give state police the right to impound and search a man’s car.
Pennsylvania judge Maria Dantos ruled that the ‘plain smell’ of marijuana alone no longer provides authorities with probable cause to conduct a search of a subject vehicle.
It’s been 4-years since the senseless shooting of Philando Castile and a lot has changed. The solidarity that came in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd led to more sweeping changes in police departments across the country. While that alone can be enough to incite optimism, there still that fear in the back of the minds of people like myself. What could happen if “I smell like marijuana.”
How police respond when those words come into their mind will be under scrutiny from here on out.
Only time will tell if police will stick with status quo or smell the changes in the air.