Source: Axios
“Smelling marijuana cannot be the sole reason for police to search a car without a warrant, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled last week. The court’s 5-1 ruling struck down a 25-year-old precedent that frustrated defense attorneys because it has been hard to raise doubts if a police officer says their search was based on the smell of weed alone. The old standard didn’t hold up because voters broadly legalized cannabis in 2018, the Detroit News reports. … ‘The smell of marijuana might just as likely indicate that the person is in possession of a legal amount of marijuana, recently used marijuana legally, or was simply in the presence of someone else who used marijuana,’ Justice Megan Cavanagh wrote in the majority opinion.” (04/07/25)
https://www.axios.com/local/detroit/2025/04/07/marijuana-smell-car-search-law-michigan