Police Back Conn. Bill Allowing Officers to Stop Motorists Smoking Pot in Cars

HARTFORD, CT — Legislation that would allow police to stop and arrest motorists suspected of smoking cannabis in their vehicles was supported Monday by law enforcement officials, who during a public hearing said they require the added tools to enforce Connecticut laws against driving while intoxicated.

But supporters of the 2021 legalization of adult-use marijuana, which prohibits cops from stopping vehicles solely if see or smell marijuana, stressed that there is currently no field-sobriety test for cannabis, which varies in effects and concentration in the blood streams of users. They charged that the law could be weaponized against Black and brown communities and would be a step back toward racial profiling and other aspects of the failed war on drugs.

And a co-chairman of the legislative Judiciary Committee said he doubts that police need another reason to stop vehicles, when there are hundreds of existing legal statutes to pull over motorists, from broken tail lights, to partially obscuring vehicle marker plates with university alumni frames, and highway toll passes usually put inside car windshields behind their rear-view mirrors.

Meriden Police Chief Roberto Rosado, representing the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association, said the smell of burning marijuana is easy to detect on his city roadways and that the proposed bill is a "common-sense" effort to make streets safer. "We smell marijuana constantly through the city of Meriden," he said. "You could probably say that for any community. Sometimes you do see the individuals consuming that cannabis."

The bill would require police to both see the cannabis being ingested and they smell the material.

"Currently it's a violation but the officer can't stop them solely for that?" asked Rep. Greg Howard, R- Stonington, a police detective. "Correct," Rosado replied. "But we don't want to make it so that officers can search cars based solely on the odor of marijuana to stop being actively smoked because there's just no crime," Howard said.

Rosado, who said that his department does not have a drug recognition expert trained in spotting cannabis intoxication, said a subsequent search would be necessary to obtain evidence. "Just like an officer observing an individual drinking alcohol, we would seize that container. In marijuana we can't do that."

"Are there any standardized field sobriety tests, roadside tests, for marijuana like there is for alcohol?" Howard asked. "No, there isn't," Rosado said. "You'd have to have observations of other motor vehicles violations."

State Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D- Bridgeport, co-chairman of the committee, offered a variety of minor vehicular infractions that police could use as pretext to stop a driver and he doubts that the bill is necessary. "I think it's sort of existing law," Stafstrom said. "We know there are 600-some-odd equipment violations that a car can be pulled over for. We know that a car can be pulled over at any time because somebody is believed to be driving erratically. You know, maybe they rolled through a stop sign. The cop can find a reason to stop a car if they want to stop a car."

"Let's be honest, they're still trying to bring the drug war back through the side door," said Christina Capitan, a co-founderof the CT CannaWarriors advocacy group with 2,500 Facebook members. "We all know how that played out," she said. "Decades of racial profiling, wrongful arrests and civil rights arrests, mostly against Black and Brown Communities. She underscored the lack of science around testing drivers for cannabis intoxication.

Joseph Accettulo, another co-founder of the group, said that operating vehicles while using alcohol or cannabis is rightfully illegal, but he warned that people employed in the state's legal cannabis industry can often carry the scent with them.

"Cannabis, again, is legal in Connecticut, therefore the smell or order should never be used as justification for infringing on an individual's rights for initiating searches," he said.

Law enforcement officials also spoke in favor of an unrelated bill that would create stiffer, reckless-driving penalties for people convicted of driving in excess of 100 miles per hour a second time, including the seizure of their vehicle for 48 hours and up to a year in jail. Rosado, the Meriden police chief said that such a new law could be used during so-called street take overs, which usually end with participants roaring away in their vehicles at high speeds.

Attorney General William Tong, who commutes from his Stamford home, agreed.

"There is not a day that goes by where I do not experience someone driving recklessly on our roads and highways along my commute up to Hartford, and even more concerningly when I am driving with my family," Tong wrote the committee. "From excessive speeding and reckless lane changes to distracted and intoxicated driving, this brazen lawlessness puts all of us at risk and cannot be tolerated. Regardless of day, time, or what lane I am in there are individuals speeding by, often exceeding one-hundred miles-per-hour."

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