Cop busts misinformed marijuana smokers

Four men who told police they'd moved to Seattle because they thought it was legal to smoke pot openly here were detained this week by police for marijuana-related offenses.

Initiative 75, which was approved by almost 59 percent of voters in 2003, requires Seattle law-enforcement officials to make marijuana offenses their lowest priority if the marijuana is intended for adult personal use.

But the initiative did not legalize marijuana, and possession of the controlled substance remains a crime.

A Seattle police officer on patrol downtown first noticed the men when the driver of the vehicle entered a crosswalk on 4th Avenue and Pike Street before stopping for a red light Tuesday evening.

According to a police report, the officer followed the car and noted that the driver braked erratically and unnecessarily and slowed down for green lights.

When the men saw his cruiser, he wrote in a report, they opened their windows one by one as if "to air out the vehicle."

"I found this to be suspicious because the outside temperature was less than 30 degrees," he wrote. When the car was pulled over, the men initially said they were only smoking cigarettes, but after the officer told them that he could tell the difference between the smell of cigarettes and pot, one of the passengers handed the officer a baggie of marijuana and two glass pipes, police said.

The driver was arrested for driving while under the influence of an intoxicant and cited for failing to stop at a red light and driving without a license in his possession. One of the passengers was cited for not wearing a seat belt.

The men told police they had moved from Wyoming to Seattle because a friend of theirs told them it was legal to possess and smoke marijuana here.

One of the men also told police he was a member of a Seattle-area church in which members smoke marijuana religiously.

Seattle police said after the 2003 initiative was passed that they were concerned the initiative could give the public the wrong message about marijuana enforcement.

"We cannot tell officers to ignore the law," former spokesman Duane Fish said at the time. "Marijuana possession and use is still illegal."