""The question before us is whether a small amount of loose marijuana scattered on the rear floor of a car violates [the open container] provision," Justice Goodwin Liu wrote for the court. "We hold it does not.""
"The case arose after Sacramento police spotted a dusting of loose 'crumbs' in the back of a car they had pulled over for a rolling stop. The debris weighed about a third of a gram - roughly the same as a dollar bill, or the contents of an average joint - and was not 'accessible for consumption,' according to the decision."
""No 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," Liu wrote. "The 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 immin"
The California Supreme Court held that loose, scattered marijuana crumbs on a vehicle floor do not violate the state's open-container rule because they are not rolled or otherwise ready to consume. Officers observed a dusting of crumbs behind a passenger during a traffic stop, totaling about a third of a gram, and used the open-container provision to justify a vehicle search that uncovered an unregistered handgun. The court emphasized that the debris was not accessible for imminent consumption and that there was no evidence of recently rolled cannabis or suspected impaired driving, so the crumbs did not meet the open-container standard.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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