By Ben Szalinski
(Capitol News Illinois) – An Illinois senate committee has put forward a bill on Tuesday that the ability of the police to look for a vehicle is strictly limiting after smelling cannabis.
The senate committee of criminal law voted 7-3 to get ahead Senate Bill 42Who would eliminate the requirement that cannabis would be transported in vehicles in a odor -resistant container. It would also forbid the police to search a vehicle that is only based on the smell of burnt or raw cannabis if the occupants are at least 21 years old.
The bill comes after the Supreme Court of Illinois issued a few statements last year. The court ruled in September that the smell of burnt cannabis did not give the police a likely reason to search a vehicle, but three months later the scent of raw cannabis likely reason for a search.
“This is a contradictory situation for law enforcement,” Bill Sponsor Senator Rachel Ventura, D-Joliet, told the committee.
Illinois’s law requires that drivers store cannabis in a “sealed, odor -resistant, child -proof cannabisconainer” in a car, and it must be “reasonably inaccessible while the vehicle moves.” When the scent of raw cannabis is detected, indicating that the statute is being violated, the court ruled in December.
“The scent of raw cannabis strongly suggests that the cannabis is not in possession within the parameters of the Law of Illinois,” wrote Justice P. Scott Neville in the majority of the court in December. “And, in contrast to the scent of burnt cannabis, the scent of raw cannabis from a vehicle reliably points to when, where and how the cannabis is possessed in the vehicle, and not in a scent-resistant container. “
Justice Mary Kay O’Brien wrote a different opinion in the December statement.
“It makes no sense to treat raw cannabis as evidence if the smell of burnt cannabis can recently suggest, while the smell of raw cannabis does not suggest consumption,” O’Brien wrote. “If the crime proposed by the scent of burnt cannabis is not sufficient for probable cause, the crime cannot be proposed by the smell of raw cannabis either.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois supports the bill of Ventura.
“Directors and passengers are legally able to possess cannabis in our state,” said Alexandra Block, director of the criminal system and police project for the ACLU of Illinois, in a statement. “This confusion about the scent of cannabis should not be more trigger for officers to continue to bother motorists and postpone it with intrusive searches.”
But law enforcement warned the bill in danger by making public safety by making it more difficult for the police to catch drug traders and drivers who are disabled by cannabis.
Illinois Sheriffs’ Association Executive Director Jim Kaitschuk offered the committee an odorless container with rough cannabis to show that people can transport cannabis in accordance with the law.
“Through our training and experience we can make this distinction” between burnt and raw cannabis, said Kaitschuk.
