I found this answer to be a little lacking. Okay, so concert promoters have the power to search you, assuming you consent. But confiscating drugs? If the cops take your drugs, okay… but if a private party takes your drugs, aren’t they now guilty of possession? What shields them from prosecution?
There is a typo in the article:
I came here to post the same question - he answered the part about the contractual nature of the search, but if part of that contract involves the transfer of illegal goods from one party to another - doesn’t that invalidate the whole thing?
I’m definitely not a lawyer, but I at least know that you generally can’t make contracts that involve illegal substances and expect them to be upheld.
And what do they do with those drugs, in reality?
They turn the contraband over to the cops. That covers them.
But it makes the mind boggle…why in the hell do people pay big bucks for a concert ticket, then go to it and get screwed up on drugs? Granted, it probably makes the noise more palatable, but assuming that you wanted to hear the band(s) in question in the first place, why mess your head up? Stupidity is the only reason I can come up with.
Who’s there to make sure 100% of the seized contraband makes it to the cops, and some doesn’t disappear along the way?
I take it you’ve never tried drugs.
Yeah. As far as I know, state and federal anti-drug laws don’t say things like “it shall be a class B felony to possess cocaine, unless you’re planning to turn it over to the cops really soon.” Once they’ve given the drugs to the cops they are perhaps “in the clear” but it seems to be that between the time they confiscate the drugs and the time they turn them in, they are in criminal possession of illicit substances. So what gives?
That was my conclusion as well. Sad, isn’t it?
Exactly what I was thinking.
Is this column really from June 6, 1975?
Why wouldn’t it be? Unca Cece’s been answering questions since 1973.
ETA: The date on the column is the date it was originally published. Occasionally, columns have updated or edited information, and the dates of those updates/edits is not displayed.
Here is how it goes:
You purchase a ticket. This is a contract: for payment of $x, you are allowed in to watch the concert. But your consideration is not just the money. You are also agreeing to do certain things. One of the things you agree to do is not bring in certain objects, like guns and drugs.
So you get to the door, and you are stopped. They ask you, “Are you carrying any of the things we said not to bring?” You say, “No.” They let you in, right?
Maybe. Or maybe they’ve learned that you will lie to them. So they insist upon searching you. You say, “Hey, I’m not gonna let you do that!” Whereupon they point out that among the things you agreed to as part of the contract is a search for prohibited items. So it’s either accept the search, or go home. Grumbling, you say okay.
They search you, and find the dime bag in your super-secret hiding place. Now, you have a choice. You can keep the dime bag, and go home, or you can give them the dime bag, and go in. Which are you going to do?
In other words, the contract doesn’t say that you agree to give them your illegal drugs. It says that you won’t go into the concert with your illegal drugs. You don’t HAVE to turn them over, but if you don’t, they don’t HAVE to let you in. 
Well in that case, they should give them back when the concert is over. 
They enjoy them themselves later on. And laugh at you while doing it. Those fucking bastards, I hate them so much!
As mentioned in the column, the guys doing the search are often off-duty cops. It’s really unlikely they’re going to give you back your stash. I’ve seen people get caught and I’ve never seen them offered to give back their stuff and leave if it was illegal drugs.
Criminal Law 101: you’re not guilty if your intention is not guilty. (The technical term is mens rea – Latin for “guilty mind”.) Temporarily possessing contraband on the way to giving it to the police is an example. Of course, you have to convince the authorities (or, in a difficult case, a jury) that this is the case, but if you’re a security guard at a rock concert, and you give it to your supervisor as soon as possible, and your supervisor gives it to the police as soon as possible, they’ll normally take it as read.
I’d always heard that possession is one of the very few exceptions to this rule.
I was caught once, a few years ago, (I believe it’s Kosher to talk about past-tense possession on this forum) going into a show in Los Angeles. At this particular place, they take your ticket and tear it, then you go past to one person who pats everyone down.
He found a Sneak-A-Toke in a pocket and told me I can’t take it in with me. I said he should let me take it back to my car (which he obviously reads as, “give me a second chance to sneak it past you”) and he said that my ticket’s already been torn, and there’s no ins-n-outs. So my choice was to keep the Sneak-A-Toke (and the contents) or to see the show.
I compromised with him emptying it and letting me in with the empty container. $10 of high-quality gone, sigh. But at least I got to keep the device. He DID dump the entirety out in front of the next 15 people in line … they all stood there watching it slowly come out as he used a key to scrape it all out! I wonder if any of them got nervous.
But, he had stopped his search at that point, thinking he’d found the entirety of my possessions, so waved me on in, smirk.
I’d like some cites to back up this defense, if you please. As far as I’m aware, mens rea means that you need to have the intent to commit the crime… not to do anything malicious. In this case, the crime is possession of controlled substances. A security guard who seizes a concertgoer’s stash certainly does intend to possess controlled substances. He may intent to use them, but you don’t need to use them to be guilty of possession. He may not intend to keep them, but that’s not an element of the crime either. And so again, if you can show some examples of possession charges being dismissed for lack of mens rea, I’d like to see them.
“Transient possession” is an affirmative defense.
Okay, let me make sure I understand this… you made an unsubstantiated claim that concert promoters who seize drugs are not guilty of possessing controlled substances because they have no mens rea, I questioned that assertion and requested a cite, and in response you provide a totally different yet equally unsubstantiated rationale? Why do I even have to ask for a source for your new claim, why haven’t you anticipated the request?
Here is the section of the Revised Code of Washington dealing with controlled substances; it’s based on the Uniform Controlled Substances Act, which has been adopted by every state. “Transient possession” does not appear.
Specific statutes do not go to the trouble of defining every known legal doctrine that might affect them. Just Google “transient possession”, fer pete’s sake.