P<\/span>rofile-based policing can take various forms \u2014 the \u201csus\u201d laws in Britain that set off rioting in the early 1980s or New York City\u2019s much more recent \u201cstop-and-frisk\u201d initiatives \u2014 but there are a few commonalities between them. The most important is how much solid evidence there is of a crime being committed before the arrest was made: None.<\/p>\n Unlike clear instances of \u201cprobable cause,\u201d such as a motorist swerving between lanes on his way home from a bar or a bloodied person being chased by an individual brandishing a weapon, profiling sees police taking citizens into custody based on innocuous characteristics: their age, race, or clothing; the neighborhood in which she lives.<\/p>\n Arrests made on such spurious grounds have often led to civil-rights lawsuits, including the one filed recently against police in Cobb County, Georgia, where sober individuals have been stopped and arrested for drug charges, solely based on a police officer\u2019s \u201chunch.\u201d<\/p>\n Cobb County Police Officer Tracey Carroll is a \u201cdrug-recognition expert,\u201d with 160 hours of training and a certificate to prove it. As TV station 11-Alive first reported,<\/a> Carroll has stopped and arrested at least three motorists on suspicion of marijuana charges, solely because he believed \u2014 through a sixth sense or some \u201cgut feeling\u201d \u2014\u00a0that they were driving while impaired by cannabis use.<\/a><\/p>\n In all three of these instances, the individuals were jailed overnight while their blood was drawn for a test, which showed that Carroll\u2019s hunch was wrong, and they were perfectly sober. They\u2019re all now suing for false arrest after spending months defending themselves from the earlier bunk charges.<\/p>\n The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Katelyn Ebner, Princess Mbamara and Ayokunle Oriyomi. They\u2019re seeking damages directly from Carroll, the Cobb County Police Department and from Cobb County.<\/p>\n Drug-recognition experts are a real thing \u2014 but they need more than a \u201chunch\u201d to act. These experts are trained to consider 12 data points. These include a verbal interview with the suspect and looking for visual cues such as visible needle marks, and go all the way up to a drug test<\/a>.<\/p>\n Each of the 12 steps are supposed to completed before a pronouncement that the suspect is on drugs can be made. In each of the three cases in Cobb County, Carroll failed to do that \u2014 earning him the unfortunate nickname of the \u201cDrug Whisperer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re kind of treating him like the human drug-sniffing dog; he\u2019s the \u2018drug whisperer,\u2019\u201d according to 11-Alive\u2019s Brendan Keefe. \u201cHe can see impairment in people that other officers can\u2019t see.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Incredibly, Cobb County police continue to insist that Carroll\u2019s gut is a better indicator than hard data of drug impairment, the TV station reported.<\/p>\n At the same time, Cobb County is releasing other drivers suspected of marijuana impairment until the results of blood tests are received.<\/p>\n It bears mentioning that there are no data-driven tests available to police<\/a>, prosecutors, or anyone using science to determine whether an individual is truly impaired by cannabis.<\/p>\n Tests detect cannabis metabolites, compounds in marijuana already broken down by the body. Unlike alcohol metabolites, which are present in the body while the effects are still felt, marijuana metabolites can stay present for days or even weeks after use.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not immediately clear how many motorists with traces of cannabis metabolites from long-ago use were also arrested by Carroll, in Cobb County, or in other jurisdictions. Nevertheless, this is a clear demonstration of police\u2019s willingness to overlook common procedure \u2014\u00a0and the law \u2014 in their zeal to pursue drug arrests.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong> how do you think police should assess cannabis use in drivers?<\/p>\n The post ACLU Sues Georgia Police for Profiling High Drivers<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A Cobb County police officer is under scrutiny for making drug arrests based on a \u201chunch.\u201d At least three of the women he arrested subsequently tested negative for cannabis in their systems. Profile-based policing can take various forms \u2014 the \u201csus\u201d laws in Britain that set off rioting in theContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[211,50,80,1697,734,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20052"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20052"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20053,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20052\/revisions\/20053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: ACLU Sues Georgia Police for Profiling High Drivers<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"