Bar Exams, Marijuana

Bar Exam Open Thread: Day One Break Question

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I hope you all enjoyed your bar exam day one morning session. For your lunch break, I have a real-life legal question I just picked up off of the street, standing in front of the Breaking Media offices in Nolita:

You are standing outside your office on a crowded street. Construction workers, residents, and even some clergymen regularly pass by. While smoking a cigarette and minding your own business, a local walks by and asks you for a light. You are about to comply with the request, but the object the local presses to his lips does not appear to be a store-bought cigarette; rather, it appears to be a joint.

You sheepishly ask, “Is that a hand-rolled cigarette?” The local replies “Naw man, it’s the good s***. You wanna hit?”

You shake your head “no,” then scan the street for police officers, but all you see are six-foot blonds entering the casting agency next to your building. Eventually, the local asks again for your lighter.

Should you give it to him? Why or why not? Could you be subject to criminal liability for doing so?

I’m interested to hear what you think. Check back here later — this post will be updated — for my solution.
UPDATE on my solution, after the jump.


One commenter perfectly captured my initial thought:

how about you give him the lighter and stop being such a f****** douchebag.

I didn’t want to be a d-bag about the situation. So I gave the guy my lighter. But I was terrified while he took the eight hours (probably more like 10 seconds) to light his joint. It wasn’t because I was really afraid that I would receive a citation for anything. Instead, this commenter was closest to my frame of mind:

If you light it for him I would say you are exposing yourself to a possession charge. You can claim you were only lighting it and not involved with the possession or smoking, but any cops response should be – tell it to the judge.

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Even though I was doing nothing wrong, legally, I was still concerned with the police perception. If an officer had happened by. What was I going to say? “Oh, sorry officer I just handed this man my lighter and now he’s smoking a joint right next to me. But it’s not my joint. I’ve never met this man in my life. It’s not really criminal to be smoking it anyway, but I wasn’t. Hey. Don’t tase me bro’.”
I didn’t really trust that a police officer would see me hand this stranger my lighter, watch him toke up, and believe me when I said that I was not at all involved.
I knew I wouldn’t be charged with anything that would stick. But a good friend of mind once said “don’t get arrested,” and I think those are words to live by.
Luckily, there were no cops around. So I gave the hippie man my lighter, traded banalities about blonds, crushed out my cigarette and came back to work.
Thanks for your help ATL readers. Maybe tomorrow we can test our collective knowledge of open container laws!

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