New Law Will Ban Open Marijuana Containers In Cars

The Olympian - By Melissa Santos

Technically, smoking pot while driving a car has been legal in Washington for more than two years.

That will change this fall when a new state law banning open containers of pot in vehicles goes into effect.

Among other provisions dealing with impaired driving, House Bill 1276 prohibits transporting unsealed packages of marijuana products in a car's passenger area.

That means loose joints, open bags of bud or partially consumed packages of marijuana-infused edibles will need to be kept in a vehicle's trunk or behind its rearmost row of seats to avoid violating the new law, which takes effect Sept. 26.

Shelly Baldwin, spokeswoman for the Washington Traffic Safety Commission, said her agency pushed for the change so that the state's rules governing marijuana would more closely resemble those for alcohol. State law already prohibits unsealed or partially consumed containers of alcohol in the passenger cabin of a vehicle.

Initiative 502, which voters approved in 2012 to legalize recreational marijuana use in Washington, established a legal limit for how much active THC -- the psychotropic in marijuana -- can be in a person's blood while they drive. But it didn't explicitly outlaw drivers or their passengers from consuming marijuana while driving, or otherwise having unsealed packages of marijuana within reach.

"We're really trying to separate using marijuana from driving, just like we do with alcohol," Baldwin said. She said the changes are essentially "a clarity of the law."

Even though a few medical marijuana advocates had argued that marijuana shouldn't be treated like alcohol, given the different ways the substances appear to affect drivers, Baldwin said the open container ban for pot didn't garner much opposition this year as it went through the Legislature.