Why You Shouldn’t Eat your Weed

Weed is illegal in Georgia. You shouldn’t have it in Georgia. Don’t smoke it, eat it, buy it, sell it, or anything else. Today, however, we are talking about eating weed. Eating weed will almost always make your situation worse. We can think of two reasons you should not eat your weed. In both situations, eating your weed will almost always make your situation worse.

1. Marijuana Edibles are a Felony

That’s right. When you take a misdemeanor amount of marijuana and you turn it into a brownie or anything like that, then you can be charged with a felony. More on that here. Edibles are felonies in Georgia. That doesn’t matter if its a lollipop, brownie, candy, or whatever.

This is incredibly important and many people do not know that this is the case! Essentially, when the marijuana loses its leafy form and the brownie simply becomes a THC infused brownie then you are looking at a much more serious situation. THC is a Schedule I substance, and the felony punishments that go along with schedule I substances are no joke.

Marijuana in all forms is illegal Georgia (except for some rare medical exceptions).

2. Eating Marijuana can Get You a Tampering with Evidence Charge

A person commits the offense of tampering with evidence when, with the intent to prevent the apprehension or cause the wrongful apprehension of any person or to obstruct the prosecution or defense of any person, he knowingly destroys, alters, conceals, or disguises physical evidence or makes, devises, prepares, or plants false evidence.

What Does that Mean?

What it means is that if you eat your weed in an effort to not get arrested you can be charged with a crime. If the cops are investigating a misdemeanor charge, then you can be charged with misdemeanor tampering. If they are investigating a felony you can be charged with felony tampering. Scary thing is, you usually don’t know if you are under investigation for a misdemeanor or felony because officers can make felony cases out of misdemeanor amounts of marijuana.

Can I be Arrested If I ate the Marijuana and Cops didn’t see Me Eat the Marijuana?

Sure. Cops can always arrest you and they usually err on the side of arresting too often. Whether that arrest was valid and whether you can be convicted are different questions that are resolved later after you have spent the night in jail and had to post bond.

If the state can prove it will depend on a lot of things. The evidence they typically use for prove ingestion based tampering:

• Cops saw you eat it.
• There is a video of you eating it (bodycam or dashcam).
• You admitted to eating it – which reminds me – DON’T TALK TO THE COPS.
• You texted about eating it on your phone.
• You posted to Instagram about it.
• You swallow the drugs, then spit, and officers test your saliva and it comes back positive for marijuana.
• Cops’ “training and experience.”
• “The totality of the circumstances” (cops’ favorite phrase).

There are also examples of prosecutors bringing tampering charges against people only for the conviction to be overturned. You can read about it here.  When there was no confession, no drug test, no video, and only officers saying “there was what looked like green leafy substance in her mouth.” There wasn’t enough evidence to sustain a conviction.

Don’t Eat your Weed

Folks, weed is illegal in Georgia. Don’t get/have/buy/sell/smoke marijuana – all of those activities are illegal in Georgia (whether it should be legal is a different debate – well not really a debate – but a different discussion at least).

If, however, you are on the side of the road under investigation for having marijuana and a cop catches you eating marijuana. You are going to be looking at a new charge – probably for tampering with evidence. If you get a dime bag, and then make a marijuana brownie, and then get pulled over, you are going to be looking at felony possession of a Schedule I drug charge. The lesson here: don’t eat your weed.