What Are My Rights When Marijuana is Legal?

hi I'm Scott with flex your rights we've been getting a lot of thoughtful emails from you guys lately and so I've got my thinking cap on this evening no zebras were harmed in the making of my thinking cap but we'll talk about animals later today what I want to talk about is marijuana again I know now you know flexer rights isn't a marijuana legalization organization we're just here to educate people about their constitutional rights but in light of the measures that have passed recently in Colorado and Washington we've been getting a lot of questions from you about sort of how how do these changes in the law affect your Fourth Amendment rights in in some of the common kinds of police encounters that you might get into and as I'm always pointing out the understanding of how marijuana laws might or might not affect you is something that matters not just for people who smoke marijuana but also for really anybody who might find them themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time the reality is that just about anybody can become a marijuana suspect if you're in the wrong situation or the wrong place and not only because of police perhaps profiling not only because of the way that you look or the neighborhood you live in but also because marijuana itself is so common in our society that a little bit of pot or pot paraphernalia could just be left in your car left on the sidewalk next to you I mean it's just the the number of situations that I've heard of where innocent people got dragged into the war on pot is so extensive I could not even describe it so let's proceed the question of how marijuana legalization affects your constitutional rights is something that I can really only speculate about hence the thinking cap so the first question that comes to my mind is sort of what is probable cause here's this big legal standard that has so much to do with the level of police Authority in a given situation and it's the thing that can protect you or destroy you depending on the circumstances you find yourself in so what is probable cause probable cause is evidence that would lead a reasonable person to believe that there's a crime going on and that the suspect present is responsible for that crime so in the case of of marijuana when a police officer smells it boom probable cause there's marijuana around here someone was burning it this guy he's wreaking of it he's got baggies on the floor of his car probable cause we're toss in this car and in that situation it doesn't matter if you refuse the search and then the police officer doesn't even need a warrant uh necessarily in most situations when he smells marijuana and so that's why the plain smell exception to the warrant requirement is such a notorious example of of police Authority in our material it's it's a a point that comes up over and over again well you know if you say you don't consent to a search police can just claim that they smell marijuana so it's a huge issue and one that that we get questions about all the time but it's something that just gets flipped on its head the instant marijuana isn't illegal anymore right think about that if marijuana isn't illegal then the smell of marijuana doesn't lead a reasonable person to believe that there's a crime going on for all you know the smell that you're smelling is just the smell of an adult legally enjoying under an ounce of cannabis in the safety of their home so you know it does kind of flip the script doesn't it now in Colorado and Washington you're not permitted to possess more than an ounce of marijuana but I've never met a police officer who could detect through old factory you know nasal observation techniques the difference between 1 o and three and a half so I really don't see how the plain smell exception to the warrant requirement holds up in the case of suspected marijuana situation when adult possession of marijuana under an ounce is no longer a criminal infraction just just doesn't work for me in Massachusetts where marijuana was decriminalized back in 2008 the courts have ruled similarly and so I expect that in Colorado and Washington in time we'll see the same policies follow now on the roadways things are going to be a little bit different obviously it's still illegal to drive well intoxicated in those States so if you're sitting there puffing a blunt behind the wheel you're begging for trouble if you're walking around the neighborhood or in a school zone smoking pot well that's still a crime and it's also disrespectful to your neighbors and so ultimately you still want to protect yourself by being careful and not pushing your luck too much if you piss the cops off enough you know what happens but at the end of the day I think that this can really create a significant shift in the way that Fourth Amendment rights are applied in those States and obviously efforts are underway to expand reforms to marijuana laws to other parts of the country and the voters seem increasingly willing to support that so as far as flexor rights is concerned and the information we provide I think there's going to be a really pretty significant impact on some of our materials that that results from these these changes in the laws and for me as someone who's followed this for for such a long time it's fascinating to see because you you look at what's happening and you think about it and it's like how did we get here and I think the answer is in part that the courts have bent over backwards to approve police searches under almost any any situation you know that we defer to the Judgment of law enforcement in all of these instances but over and over again the rationale that's used to wave forth Amendment rights in the case of a of a drug rated police search is that these substances are illegal and you have to get them and so the instant that the substance itself ceases to be illegal all of these tools that police and courts have collaborated to to develop for themselves all of those tools suddenly fall apart and it creates a a whole new playing field and so you can bet that it flex your rights we we'll do our best to follow that and keep you up to speed on on how all of this plays out I think it's going to be a fascinating thing to watch and and I hope you you'll stay tuned to to watch it unfold along with us as always you can check out the rest of our videos here on YouTube we have our wonderful fulllength instructional videos we have a lot of shorter clips and video blogs and other interesting things for you to check out so please uh please watch them all and pass them along to your friends and neighbors and family and for those of you who can afford to we really appreciate your support through the website at flexor rights.org we can send you hard copies of our instructional videos and we also have these great I don't consent to searches t-shirts available through the website as well it's the only place to get them so check us out there at flexy rights.org thanks so much and be safe out there

Channel: Flex Your Rights

Views: 41,984

Keywords: legal, marijuana, legalization, colorado, washington, police, cops, law, courts, searches, rights, probable cause, flex your rights, traffic stop, drugs, arrest, Crime, Cannabis (drug), weed, pot, Cop, Attorney, Lawyer (Occupation), Medical Cannabis (Drug), United States Of America (Country), police encounter

Id: 6EcUmNJ3ppc

Length: 6min 43sec (403 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 13 2013