Louisiana No Longer Allows the Smell of Cannabis to be Considered “Probable Cause” to Search

​This week marks the beginning of a new state law in Louisiana regarding cannabis.

As of now, police will not be able to use the smell of cannabis as probable cause to do a search.

The bill was authored by New Iberia Representative Marcus Bryant who says their state’s recent legalization of smokable medical marijuana makes this law necessary because there are still warrent-less searches and arrests being made on the basis of smelling cannabis alone.

Now that the new legislation is in place, Bryant said “We do offer marijuana as a form of pain medication…so I think, going into the next session and the next governor, they are going to start looking at more ways to protect persons that have legal prescriptions for marijuana.”

This new law is a great start.

---