North Carolina's top court just ruled — again — that weed smell alone justifies a search

On August 15, North Carolina's Supreme Court unanimously upheld a conviction out of Mecklenburg County built in part on the smell of cannabis, ruling in State v. Schiene that odor remains one valid factor in establishing probable cause for a warrantless search. It's the court's third such ruling in 2026, following State v. Dobson and State v. Rowdy, both decided May 22.

The tension underneath all three cases: North Carolina legalized smokable hemp back in 2018, and hemp and marijuana are indistinguishable by smell without a lab test. Defense attorney Benjamin Kull made that point directly in oral arguments, reportedly bringing a bag of legal hemp into the courtroom to illustrate it — arguing that treating odor as automatic grounds for a search effectively penalizes lawful hemp possession. Justice Phil Berger Jr., writing for the court, said the question was already settled, pointing back to Justice Anita Earls' framing in Dobson that odor is weighed as one factor within the "totality of the circumstances," not a standalone trigger.

North Carolina still has no adult-use market, so this mostly lands on hemp retailers, medical-adjacent CBD/THC product carriers, and everyday consumers of fully legal hemp goods — all of whom remain exposed to a vehicle search any time an officer claims to smell cannabis, compliant product or not.

Three rulings in one year is a pattern, not a fluke, and it signals the state's high court isn't going to revisit this doctrine without new legislation forcing the issue. Anyone operating in or shipping product into North Carolina should treat odor-based stops as a live legal risk regardless of what's actually in the car.