average joint <\/a>\u2014 and was not \u201caccessible for consumption,\u201d according to the decision.<\/p>\nNevertheless, police cited the \u201copen container\u201d law as probable cause to search the car, and turned up an unregistered handgun, for which the passenger was charged. <\/p>\n
\u201cNo officer suggested he was concerned that [the driver or passenger] could have somehow, while riding in the front of the car, collected the scattered bits of marijuana from the rear floor behind [the passenger] for imminent consumption,\u201d Liu wrote. \u201cThe officers had no reason to believe that any marijuana was recently rolled, and the officers did not suspect impaired driving, underscoring the disconnect between the scattered bits of loose marijuana on the rear floor and potential for imminent consumption.\u201d <\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s decision draws a much sharper boundary around what can be considered an \u201copen container\u201d under California law. Liu wrote that, until recently, the \u201cprovisions have been relevant primarily in the context of alcohol.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough the \u2018open container\u2019 concept as applied to marijuana reflects the same purpose, alcohol and marijuana are materially different,\u201d the judge said. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s relatively easy to grab an open beer from the back seat while driving, but much harder to pack a pipe or roll a joint with bits of flower off the floorboards, the court held.<\/p>\n
Courts have previously ruled that an \u201cunburned blunt\u201d on the lap of a passenger violates the open container law because it\u2019s ready to be used, while remnants of ash and flecks of pot in the center console and the driver\u2019s lap did not, because it fell below the threshold of a \u201cusable amount.\u201d <\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s decision sets aside that \u201cusable amount\u201d metric in favor of an accessibility test. <\/p>\n
\u201cMarijuana that is not in a state to be consumed or that cannot be reached \u2018while driving, operating, or riding\u2019 in a vehicle has no potential for impaired driving,\u201d Liu wrote. \u201cWhile marijuana in a sealed container is neither readily accessible nor imminently usable and thus does not violate the open container statute, marijuana in a vehicle need not be in a sealed container to be lawful.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California cops can\u2019t stop or cite drivers under the state\u2019s \u201copen container\u201d rules for cannabis unless the product…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[14080,7,9,8,283,76778,3622,6848,287,2424,76779,76780,76775,2322,76776,16208,76777,76781],"class_list":["post-156937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-bit","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-car","tag-consumption","tag-court","tag-decision","tag-driver","tag-friday","tag-liu","tag-loose-cannabis","tag-loose-marijuana","tag-officer","tag-open-container","tag-passenger","tag-rear-floor","tag-state-supreme-court-rule"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}