Crime & Law
After Objections, CPD Agrees Officers Will Not Search Vehicles Based on Smell of Raw Cannabis: Reform Groups
Video: The WTTW News Spotlight Politics team on the Chicago Police Department’s proposed new rules and more of the day’s top stories. (Produced by Abena Bediako)
Chicago Police Department officials agreed to revise proposed new rules and prohibit officers from searching vehicles based on the smell of raw cannabis, a coalition of reform groups told the federal judge overseeing efforts to reform the Chicago Police Department.
The coalition of police reform groups behind the consent decree — the six-year-old federal court order requiring the CPD to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers — told U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer they had dropped their request that she order CPD leaders to revise a proposed policy designed to set new limits on when Chicago police officers can stop and search Chicagoans.
The coalition, led by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, “applauds” CPD for amending the policy in late May, calling the latest version “an improvement” that reflects an agreement reached in August 2023 that prohibits officers from “conducting an investigatory stop or search of an individual based solely on an officer smelling cannabis/marijuana without any other specific and articulable facts of criminal activity,” in a court filing made Monday.
Read the latest public draft of the policy here.
The Chicago Police Department does not track how many traffic stops are conducted based on the smell of raw cannabis, according to documents obtained by WTTW News through the Freedom of Information Act.
In fact, CPD officers rarely stop Chicagoans on suspicion of unlawfully possessing cannabis or violating the law regulating the possession or use of medical marijuana, according to CPD data.
In the seven months between December 2024 and June 2025, just 70 traffic stops were conducted on the basis of suspected violations of laws governing the use and possession of cannabis, according to CPD data.
In 2024, CPD officials reported officers made 295,846 traffic stops to the Illinois Department of Transportation, which is required by state law to track all stops made by police officers throughout the state.
Lawyers representing Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul endorsed the revised draft policy and told Pallmeyer it complies with state and federal law, as well as the consent decree.
The Illinois Supreme Court ruled in December that the scent of raw cannabis is enough for a police officer to search a vehicle, even though marijuana is legal in the state. Three months before that decision, the Supreme Court found that the smell of burnt cannabis was not probable cause for a search.
Drivers are required to store cannabis in a “sealed, odor-proof, child-resistant cannabis container” when in a car, and it must be “reasonably inaccessible while the vehicle is moving,” according to Illinois law. If an officer can smell raw cannabis, that indicates the statute is being violated, according to the Supreme Court ruling.
The previous version of the draft policy references that ruling to improperly create an “exception” that allows officers to stop or search a vehicle based on the odor of raw cannabis, according to the coalition.
The current version of the draft policy “reflects an acceptable compromise interpretation,” according to the coalition’s court filing, that allows CPD officers to conduct vehicle searches after smelling raw cannabis as long as they have other evidence that supports a “reasonable articulable suspicion that the person is committing, about to commit, or has committed a criminal offense,” the standard set by CPD policy for investigatory stops.
“Additionally, CPD has now acknowledged that its officers cannot conduct vehicle searches based on the odor of raw cannabis unless and until they are adequately trained to distinguish between the odors of raw and burnt cannabis,” according to the coalition’s court filing.
CPD should follow the recommendation of lawyers for the Illinois Attorney General and prohibit officers from extending “a temporary detention initiated based on probable cause of a traffic violation solely to investigate raw cannabis odor,” according to the coalition’s court filing.
Officers should also be prohibited from asking drivers for their consent to search vehicles based on the odor of raw cannabis, according to the coalition’s court filing.
A law that would ban vehicle searches based on the smell of raw cannabis passed the Illinois Senate in April but failed to get a vote in the Illinois House of Representatives.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
