Author Jack Daniel

Cash strapped police precincts are getting especially aggressive on traffic stops, since the revenue the patrol cops draw from writing tickets helps to keep the lights on back at the station. But when not enough people are caught texting while driving, or failing to come to a complete stop, or speeding away from bank robberies, a cop’s gotta do what a cop’s gotta do.
With no time for pesky little things like warrants, cops these days can search your vehicle – regardless of your past criminal record, or lack of – with nothing more than what they like to call probable cause. All too often, all an officer has to say to gain their all-important probable cause is that they can smell weed in the car.

In February of this year, local pro-cannabis activists in Kern County in Southern California concocted a defense of pot dispensaries that you have to be toking on some top shelf herbs to come up with.
Their argument was that by forcing the closure or re-location of the vast majority of local medical marijuana storefronts, they would be violating the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by making the region’s cannabis consumers drive their pollution-spewing cars even further to get their medication.
Half-baked or not, the defense stood up in court and the de facto ban on medical marijuana in Kern County was delayed. As we reported at the time, the court’s decision set a potential landmark precedent for other counties or cities on the verge on instituting their own crackdowns on the chron. The example we used was San Diego, and sure enough, America’s Finest City has become the new proving ground.