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With cannabis legalization changing the landscape, Santa Fe Police Department lacks in-depth, updated training on probable cause for searches

Under New Mexico’s legalization law, cops can no longer use the smell or sight of cannabis as probable cause to search vehicles.

It marks a massive change in policing in the state: On June 28, the scent of a dime-bag in your glove box was enough to allow an officer to toss your truck or sedan; the next day, when the new law kicked in, not so much.

Despite the new reality, the Santa Fe Police Department is treating cannabis legalization informally. For example, the department hasn’t conducted in-depth training, such as bringing in a legal expert, to explain the numerous implications for the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against illegal search and seizure.

And as of now, there are no plans to do so, Police Chief Andrew Padilla tells SFR during an interview on July 23.

After the interview with Padilla, SFR talked to a criminal justice reform advocate and a legal expert who say SFPD’s lack of in-depth training on probable cause is concerning, given the stakes.

Padilla says his administration sent out a department-wide email the day legalization went into effect, with “updates and direction” regarding the law and, on July 6, followed up with a “special order” providing “official direction to all personnel.”

Beyond that, the chief says, discussions about probable cause to search and other far-reaching policing strategies related to legal cannabis have been covered in roll-call briefings at which supervisors discuss changes to the law with officers.

Padilla says he’s not planning anything more comprehensive to ensure Santa Feans’ rights aren’t violated because there aren’t “major questions” that need to be addressed.

New Mexico law requires that all police officers take various courses every year and, in some instances, every two years to maintain their certifications. Think of it as continuing education for cops.

Some of the biannual requirements: a four-hour block on legal, safe pursuit tactics; a one-hour course on ensuring children are safe when their parents are arrested; and two hours in the classroom learning the latest strategies and case law on interacting with people who are experiencing a mental health crisis.

Every year, officers must re-qualify with their firearms, take a one-hour refresher on investigating domestic violence crimes and spend two hours in the classroom taking an “accredited legal update training to include changes in New Mexico state statutes and recent state and federal case law,” according to New Mexico statute.

And yet, Padilla says briefings in the squad room will suffice for his officers—despite the massive shift in state law surrounding cannabis possession.

Some criminal justice reform advocates and legal experts say the more casual briefings—which, according to Padilla, can last from 15 minutes to an hour—aren’t enough.

“As advocates, we hope that all police departments across the state are adequately training law enforcement on the new legislation. That training is going to vary from agency to agency,” Emily Kaltenbach, senior director for resident states and New Mexico for the Drug Policy Alliance, tells SFR. “In our opinion, there should be in-depth training as well as brief training.”

Alex Kreit, director of Northern Kentucky University’s Center on Addiction Law and Policy, tells SFR that insufficient training could lead to constitutional rights violations.

“I think if you don’t have training on the Fourth Amendment implications of legalization, for sure there is a risk that there’s going to be needless sort of violations of people’s rights from police who maybe don’t realize that what they’re doing, that was once OK to do or legal to do before, no longer is now,” Kreit says.

When first asked about what training has been done on probable cause, Padilla says: “Just ‘cause it’s legalized, I mean, you should be using it at your home,” adding that the law doesn’t allow people to smoke in public.

He goes on to say his department has a handful of top priorities, including auto burglary and domestic violence, and cannabis isn’t one of them.

“It’s a low, low priority, as it previously was, and now it’s legal, so we can move on,” Padilla says.

Santa Fe decriminalized cannabis in 2014, with a city ordinance that read: “It is the duty of the police department to make possession of one ounce or less of marijuana the lowest law enforcement priority.”

But that didn’t stop the police department from arresting people for possession of small amounts of cannabis in the years that followed.

Kreit says advocates hope cannabis legalization will help curb drug war policing that often brings rights violations with it.

As an example, he points to the New York Police Department’s infamous stop-and-frisk policy, which allowed officers to stop, interrogate and search residents on the basis of “reasonable suspicion” and, as the Intercept recently reported, continues to disproportionately be used against Black people.

“With practices like stop-and-frisk in New York, it’s almost part and parcel of war-on-drugs policing that there’s a lot of constitutional violations occurring that are difficult to litigate or don’t get litigated as much as they should,” Kreit says. “One of the arguable benefits of legalization is to hopefully reduce that sort of heavy-handed, drug-war type of policing that doesn’t give enough regard for people’s constitutional rights.”

Jeff Proctor contributed reporting.

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