According to [this story](this story) (excerpts of an upcoming Diane Sawyer interview with Whitney Houston), Whitney seems to have admitted–in general terms–that she has used cocaine in the past. Surprise, surprise.
A few questions:
[ul]
[li]Do celebrities, or ordinary people, run the risk of arrest when they make a general admission like this?[/li][li]Would Whitney run a greater risk of arrest if she was more specific, naming a date, time, and place that she had used cocaine?[/li][li]If there is risk of arrest, how far back does it go? Could an ex-hippie be busted for admitting something he did back in the sixties?[/li][li]And finally, what are the reasons/justifications/cites supporting the above answers?[/li][/ul]
I don’t know the answer, but i just wanted say i always wondered about this as well.
I mean, there are thousands of musicians that openly sing about their drug use, so why don’t the cops just bust into Dr. Dre’s studio and search it on the basis of his song lyrics? Are they on some sort of payroll?
This has always baffled me.
This is a WAG, but I don’t think you can get busted for past drug use, since there is usually no concrete proof that you are not lying. They have to bust you with the actual drug in your possession or there’s really nothing the can do. At least that’s what I’ve always thought.
Whitney’s a celebrity, so that should give you an idea how likely she might get arrested, and if arrested, convicted and if convicted, the nature of the punishment.
AFAIK Reeder is right. I’ve never heard of it being illegal to use drugs, just illegal to sell or possess them.
About the song lyrics, I’ve wondered this too. Ludacris has a lyric that says “It’s illegal but the [pot] plants in my backyard grow.” Wouldn’t it be funny if they went and searched his backyard and arrested him for growing pot?
I think the reason they can’t is that it’s just entertainment. If the cops went and raided Dr. Dre’s studio or Ludacris’s backyard, then how until they’re arresting Al Pacino or Arnold Schwarzenegger for murder?
I used to work with a lot of users and dealers (as a social worker), and the police could not do anything unless a person was found in posession of a substance. That is unless of course they were doing something else in conjunction with their being high. Most of the offenses that are linked with illegal substances revolve around possession or intent to deliver. I have never see on a police file or elsewhere someone who was charged with being under the influence alone.
That is how things go where I am in Michigan. I don’t know what the laws are anywhere else.
While logically one had to be in violation of possession laws for some period of time (if only one second) in order to have used the drug, a public statement is not the same thing as a legal confession. The speaker could claim to have been lying, bragging, entertaining, etc. I can’t see any court or police agency wasting time on “evidence” as flimsy as that.
Well, from watching movies like Pulp Fiction, I got the impression that somebody who had OD’d or was otherwise injured while high would be reluctant to go to the hospital in that state because they would show up positive for drugs and could be charged.
So what happens if someone shows up at a hospital with cocaine in their bloodstream? They aren’t currently in possession of the drug, but they’ve obviously used it. Would this case be subject to the same logic?
In most U.S. states, being under the influence of a controlled substance is a crime in and of itself. However, there is a doctrine in the U.S. known as the “corpus delecti” rule. In sum, this common law doctrine says that a defendant’s out-of-court statements are inadmissible until the prosecution provides independent evidence that a crime has really been committed. To put it another way, if the prosecution has no evidence of a crime apart from the defendant’s out-of-court confession, it has no case.
There are sound reasons behind this rule. For one thing, it’s an application of “no harm, no foul.” If the state can’t find any evidence that a crime has been committed apart from the defendant’s trash talk, the crime obviously hasn’t caused much harm to society so the state has a pretty limited interest in prosecuting it.
You cannot get a search warrant based on a song about drug use. It is considered to be a creative work of fiction and is not probable cause.
The song is protected under the freedom of speech clause of the 1st amendment. That doesn’t mean you’re immune from EVERYTHING you try to say. It also doesn’t mean that everything written down or spoken with a background guitar suddenly becomes immune from prosecution. It just means the song alone is not sufficient evidence to get a search warrant and tear a home apart.
Also realize that drug rehab programs would be non-existant if having used a drug were a prosecutable offense. All the cops would have to do would be to arrest everyone in rehab since they are presumably all trying to recover from a drug addiction (except alcohol of course).
Drunk in public is a legit charge I’m sure “public intoxication” could extend to drugs. I’m pretty sure its just a fine (and maybe a night in the drunk tank).
Admitting you once did drugs is too fuzzy to prosecute. Being under the influence at the time of the admission, in the presence of law enforcement will most likely get you in trouble to one degree or another…
ok, if public admittance of previous drug use isn’t enough to convict you. What about the next time the cops pull you over? Do they now have enough probable cause to search your vehicle without a warrant?
