Jesus said, Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. (Matthew 7:12).  

I know I would not want my child thrown in jail with the sexual predators, or my aging parents to have their house confiscated and sold by the police, over a little marijuana.   

I smoke quite often and even I will occasionally mistake a smell, of say a skunk far out of site, for marijuana. To say that a police officer, who I assume could be trained, should be allowed to make that judgment and enter as he/she pleases is ridiculous. In fact there are so many things that smell similar to "weed" and even to some professionals could easily be mixed up. The only "sniffers" that I think we could trust would be dogs to do that job but then again I would say marijuana should be legalized, taxed and then restricted to adults.

It is next to impossible to tell the difference between the smell of burnt marijuana and the herb mugwort, or "moxa" in Chinese, which is used commonly in acupuncture and as a general incense.  Check out all the testimonials on the Internet -- some acupuncturists have been visited multiple times by the police.  My acupuncturist even has a sign on her door that reads "No, that is not America's favorite recreational drug you are smelling.  It's mugwort/moxa we use during acupuncture."

Police should never be given the power to break doors down over supposedly smelling marijuana.  Seeing as how many substances people burn mimic the odor, the default should be the belief that one is smelling an incense that resembles the smell of marijuana.  Once I even bought incense that was advertised as smelling like marijuana...it did!  It's just such a shame that our policies are so childish as to chase smells -- isn't it time we all (smokers and nonsmokers) acted like adults, had a grown-up discussion about marijuana, and legalized and taxed it once and for all?  To any rational human being that has truly looked at all the facts involved from an unbiased point of view, it is obvious that our policies are much more informed by hysteria/fear and lack of knowledge than by science and logic.

-- Bill
 

I can't believe they can even get a search warrant based on the smell of marijuana.  It could be oregano.

Can't guess how the Court will find, but a "marijuana smell" from smoking is almost 100% avoidable.  Simply eliminate messy wasteful hot burning joints and big bowl pipes and use a one-hitter (or if you have the money a vaporizer).  Merely requires that you have sifted your herb to an even particle size (#16 screening will do).

Further refinement: after any toke, instead of holding your breath, breathe 30 warm wet W's in and out of a Lunchspielhaus (breadbag) in honor of the Dawgwagner.  That way for sure your lungs will absorb maximum amount of identifiable aromatic substance before releasing anything into the ambient air.

OK, so the cops temporarily lost sight of the 'perp' who zipped between two residences, with the cops hot on his tail.  He disappears into one of the units, but the cops don't see which one.  The cops come steaming up, seconds later, and smell what they believe is pot coming from one of the residences, whereupon they break into that unit, and don't find their perp.  Given the circumstances, I see no other logical conclusion than that the other door is the correct one; there wasn't time to spark up, and the perp would not wish to draw attention to himself, so if the cops' story is true, they should have gone into the other unit-- the one with no smell of pot, unless they couldn't figure that out.  The fact that the cops broke down the wrong door shows them to be lacking in the logic department, or else lying in their story.  Stupid or a liar; take your pick.

My apartment hallway used to smell like pot 24/7 for a few years.The kids moved out and now I don't smell it but that could be because I smoke it once in a while.Just to answer primus,the guy could have smoked just before going out or just had a couple of pounds on the kitchen table ready to be packaged for sale.Fresh pot reeks.The point is that so many people smoke pot a pot smell is no justification to break into someone's home,period.I'm afraid that with your current supreme court makeup the cops will probably prevail every time regardless the strength of their case.You would think the fact that they wound up in the wrong apartment would be proof enough that their logic was flawed.I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

sicintired; the story says the guys were smoking pot, and that is what the cops smelled.  I understood it to mean that they were toking as the door came down.  In that case, they used cop logic (Oxymoron alert) to make the wrong choice. 

The real reason pot is illegal is because the government doesn't want you to have industrial hemp.