# How long have US cops been seizing cars for  minor drug  offenses?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-us-cops-been-seizing-cars-for-minor-drug-offenses/474122>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 23, 2008, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-us-cops-been-seizing-cars-for-minor-drug-offenses/474122 "2008-11-23T18:15:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-us-cops-been-seizing-cars-for-minor-drug-offenses/474122/21 "2008-11-24T16:28:29Z")

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> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> And it can be difficult to prove because it’s hard to find a lawyer I understand; I’ve heard that the cops will sometimes seize the assets of any lawyers you pay to advocate your side in a forfeiture case, claiming that now **they** are profiting from “drug money”.

It’s been tried, without much sucess. The courts, so far, seem to understand the right to counsel. It has caused lawyers to be a bit careful when somone wants to pay their $20,000 in cash. Some prosecutors have gone after lawyers for failing to file that IRS form for large cash transactions. When I did that kind of work, we’d insist the client pay us by check, to avoid the issue.

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**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-us-cops-been-seizing-cars-for-minor-drug-offenses/474122/22 "2008-11-24T17:53:47Z")

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A [related thread in the Pit](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=494337); the cops claim to smell marijuana in a man’s car, and confiscate his X-Box and 8 games, which have mysteriously disappeared.

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**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-us-cops-been-seizing-cars-for-minor-drug-offenses/474122/23 "2008-11-24T21:23:30Z")

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> [@sailor](#):
>
> I believe they were expanded but it seems forfeiture laws have a long tradition. They are not new, only more common. It is tradition which enables them. I do not think they would pass constitutional muster if they were newly enacted today.

Seizure of vehicles and other assets, if implicated in the transportation or smuggling of illegal liquor, was provided for by the Volstead Act that implemented national alcohol prohibition in the 1920s. It probably didn’t happen very often to small-time violators and “personal users”, but I’m sure that varied from place to place, and many states had much more draconian anti-liquor laws that approached today’s drug laws in their severity. Michigan had an early version of the three-strikes law, and possession of alcohol was a felony; there were a handful of cases in which a minor defendant got life for a third conviction of possession. Their sentences got commuted after repeal.

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