For years, officers in Florida’s Second District could search a vehicle based solely on the smell of marijuana. The assumption was simple: if it smelled like cannabis, it was probably illegal, and that was enough to open the doors and start searching. That changed with Williams v. State, a 2025 en banc decision from the Second District Court of Appeal, which squarely confronted how much Florida’s cannabis laws have evolved.
Over the last decade, the Florida Legislature and Congress created several categories of cannabis-related products that are lawful to possess: medical marijuana for qualified patients, hemp products with very low THC, and other regulated forms. None of these distinctions can be detected through smell alone. A police officer walking up to a car cannot tell, just by odor, whether the cannabis they smell is an illegal controlled substance or lawful hemp or medical marijuana.
The court held that the odor of marijuana, standing alone, is no longer sufficient to establish probable cause to search a vehicle.
In Williams v. State, the Second DCA recognized that reality and receded from its earlier precedent, including Owens v. State. The court brought cannabis cases back in line with the usual Fourth Amendment rule: courts must look at the totality of the circumstances. Odor can still be one factor, but it cannot be the entire basis for a vehicle search. Officers now need something more—such as admissions, visible contraband, impaired driving, or other facts suggesting illegal possession.
This is a practical shift for cases arising out of Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Polk, Hardee, Highlands, DeSoto, Manatee, and Sarasota Counties. For defense lawyers, the case is an important tool when filing motions to suppress in situations where the search was based only, or almost entirely, on the odor of marijuana. For nonlawyers, the decision is a reminder that constitutional protections are not frozen in time. When the Legislature changes what is and is not a crime, the way courts evaluate searches has to adjust as well.
One final piece of the opinion is also worth noting. The court ultimately affirmed the revocation of Mr. Williams’ probation, not because the search was lawful under the new rule, but because officers relied in good faith on binding appellate precedent that existed at the time of the search. Going forward, though, the rule has changed. In the Second DCA, smell alone no longer opens the door to a full search of a vehicle.