As of July 1, thanks to a ballot initiative that Maryland voters overwhelmingly approved last November, state law will allow adults 21 or older to publicly possess up to 1.5 ounces of marijuana. In anticipation of that development, Maryland legislators last month passed H.B. 1071, which will bar police, also effective July 1, from treating the smell of cannabis as sufficient grounds for stopping or searching pedestrians or cars.
Virginia enacted a similar law in 2020, and legislators in other states, including Missouri and Illinois, have proposed the same basic reform. The reasoning behind it is straightforward: Once it is legal to possess small amounts of cannabis, an odor indicating the presence of that substance no longer constitutes evidence of a crime. It therefore cannot, by itself, provide reasonable suspicion for a stop or probable cause for a search. Yet the Maryland bill, which the Democrat-controlled legislature approved by a 101–36 vote in the House and a 27–20 vote in the Senate, recently became law without Gov. Wes Moore's signature, which suggests he had reservations about it.
