Driving with Marijuana in Your Car in California

According to a recent news article from the Sacramento Bee, some major changes to the adult legalization of marijuana are coming, including whether you can carry marijuana in your vehicle.  This change and many others comes from a 100-page bill just signed by Governor Jerry Brown with the goal of creating a unified regulatory system to govern marijuana in California. This is part of a major change that has been a long time coming, as there was previously very little state involvement in the medical marijuana industry.

The state wanted to change the reputation that California is the Wild West in terms of marijuana laws and business, and they moved to create an agency to regulate medical marijuana.  As this was occurring, Proposition 64 was passed by a majority of voters, making marijuana legal for recreational use as well as medicinal. As our Los Angeles medical marijuana attorneys can explain, when Proposition 64 passed, the state wanted to incorporate the soon to be create state marijuana agency into handling the cultivation, distribution, and sale of marijuana for recreational use as well.  This caused the state to draft even more proposals and this led to numerous bills being brought forth.  While it seemed like the state had done all it was going to do with respect to streamlining marijuana regulation, this was not the case, as evidenced by the latest massive set of marijuana regulations.

There are still other pieces of legislation that pertain to marijuana being drafted by the new California Bureau of Medical Cannabis Regulations, but much of this will have more of an effect on marijuana farming.  For example, there is a new bill in the works that deals with what types of pesticides can be used when cultivating medical marijuana crops.

Driving with Marijuana in Your Car

One of the major areas of regulation in this new bill deals with whether you can drive with marijuana in your car.  If you were driving with an open container of alcohol in your car, you could be assessed a $100 fine.  This is essentially what the state has decided to do with marijuana. If you have an open container of marijuana in the passenger compartment of your vehicle, you could be assessed a $100 fine.  In the case of marijuana, and open contain is a literally a container that is open or the factory seal has been broken, in the case of vape cartridges. However, it appears that if you put the items in your trunk, you will be okay.

There is also an exception for medical marijuana patients. Pursuant to this exception, you must keep your marijuana in a closed container, but it does not matter if the factory seal has been broken or the container has been previously opened, so long as it is closed at the time you are driving if you are pulled over or go though some type of check point.  It is our hope that there will not be marijuana checkpoints for vehicles.

The Los Angeles CANNABIS LAW Group represents growers, dispensaries, collectives, patients and those facing marijuana charges. Call us at 949-375-4734.

Additional Resources:

When can you drive with weed in your car? A consumer guide to California marijuana laws, June 15, 2017, By Taryn Luna, Sacramento Bee

More Blog Entries:
Report: Colorado Marijuana Laws May Not be Safe, Feb. 5, 2017, L.A. Marijuana Lawyer Blog