Quote Originally Posted by Markass
Yeah, I bet that's what all sorts of cops are thinking once they smell it, and then don't find anything after initiating a search.
Do you think that happens very often?

Look, I don't want to see anyone get busted for weed. I think it should be legal across the board. But it is illegal, so it's fair game for cops to go after it. I am also all for making police keep within their strct legal limits when it coms to search and siezure. But my main objection to this is that it is a stupid defense that goes completely against common sense.

The whole idea that smelling pot smoke doesn't prove that there is any more pot is asinine. Probable cause doesn't require proof --- probable cause relies on more of a common sense approach and is what allows police to go and find the proof. It seems like common sense to me that if you smell pot smoke, then there was pot there recently, and there might still be pot there. The idea that the smoke indicates they smoked it all and there is nothing left is moronic.

This whole thing is going to prove moot anyway. All the cop had to do was to say he smelled pot instead of pot smoke ,and the defense goes right out the window. Did you smell pot or pot smoke? My training doesn't distinguish --- I smelled a smell that I have been trained indicates pot, so I searched and found pot.

The other approach to defeating this would be to bring a canine unit that actually could smell the weed, and not just the smoke.

The case in this article had to do with weed, so we all root for the pot smoker. But I think it is alarming to think that these kinds of restrictions that go against common sense might be applied in other kinds of cases where the stakes are a lot higher and most of us would want the guy to be caught. We don't necessarily want the murderers, rapists, and thieves getting away on these kinds of technicalities.