Guidelines for Driving With Marijuana in Colorado
As Colorado embraces the legal recreational use of marijuana, questions remain about how best to drive around with the drug in your car. The simple truth is you cannot just dump a plate of tinfoil-wrapped brownies in the passenger seat or stash a few joints in the glove compartment on the way home from the dispensary€"especially if you've already sampled some of the goodies. That's because open containers of marijuana, like alcohol, are banned in the state of Colorado.
An open container of alcohol is pretty easy to picture, but what would an open container of marijuana look like?
All cannabis leaving a recreational marijuana store is supposed to be in an opaque, child-resistant bag with a clear label, so there would certainly be signs if you've prematurely opened something directly from the shops. Since Coloradoans are legally allowed to possess 1 ounce of marijuana at a time though, that packaging rule may not apply to other transportation situations. If you're driving over to a friend's house, for instance, could you put your cannabis in a Tupperware container and consider that sealed?
According to the law, an open container includes anything containing marijuana€"whether an edible, a vaporizer, or a traditional bag of kush€"and which:
€ Is open, or has a broken seal;
€ Has contents that have been partially removed (a bite of a brownie, for example);
€ Supplies evidence that marijuana has been consumed within the motor vehicle.
Suffice it to say, the practical interpretation of this law remains incredibly ambiguous and that Tupperware box might not make the cut with law enforcement. Therefore, I urge you to keep your marijuana substances as far away from you as possible while driving. In fact, the best advice I can offer at this point is to put all cannabis-related products in the trunk. In vehicles without trunks, it is acceptable to have unsealed pot behind the very last row of seats, and it's all right to have open weed in the living quarters of recreational vehicles as well.
While the fine for having an open container of pot might be just $50 (with a surcharge of $7.80), the reality is even a petty drug offense violates federal law and will always show up on background checks. That, in turn, will affect your eligibility for federal student loans, hamper certain employment prospects, and possibly ban you from social benefits such as food stamps and public housing.
I cannot emphasize enough how long it might take to establish a standard application of the open container law, so, for now, please, PUT IT IN THE TRUNK!
An open container of alcohol is pretty easy to picture, but what would an open container of marijuana look like?
All cannabis leaving a recreational marijuana store is supposed to be in an opaque, child-resistant bag with a clear label, so there would certainly be signs if you've prematurely opened something directly from the shops. Since Coloradoans are legally allowed to possess 1 ounce of marijuana at a time though, that packaging rule may not apply to other transportation situations. If you're driving over to a friend's house, for instance, could you put your cannabis in a Tupperware container and consider that sealed?
According to the law, an open container includes anything containing marijuana€"whether an edible, a vaporizer, or a traditional bag of kush€"and which:
€ Is open, or has a broken seal;
€ Has contents that have been partially removed (a bite of a brownie, for example);
€ Supplies evidence that marijuana has been consumed within the motor vehicle.
Suffice it to say, the practical interpretation of this law remains incredibly ambiguous and that Tupperware box might not make the cut with law enforcement. Therefore, I urge you to keep your marijuana substances as far away from you as possible while driving. In fact, the best advice I can offer at this point is to put all cannabis-related products in the trunk. In vehicles without trunks, it is acceptable to have unsealed pot behind the very last row of seats, and it's all right to have open weed in the living quarters of recreational vehicles as well.
While the fine for having an open container of pot might be just $50 (with a surcharge of $7.80), the reality is even a petty drug offense violates federal law and will always show up on background checks. That, in turn, will affect your eligibility for federal student loans, hamper certain employment prospects, and possibly ban you from social benefits such as food stamps and public housing.
I cannot emphasize enough how long it might take to establish a standard application of the open container law, so, for now, please, PUT IT IN THE TRUNK!