Legal Question in Criminal Law in Minnesota

Re: marijuana possession

The only way to minimize the risk as much as possible is to never have contraband in the apartment at all. On a continuum from there, it's somewhat more risky to have contraband there, when you have no personal knowldege (truly believe none is there). The next uptick in risk from there would be the situation, where you have reason to suspect, or to know, contraband is present. At a bare minimum, under the law a person cannot "possess" something without "knowledge" of its presence (since "possession" includes "knowledge" at a minimum).

Normally the word "possession" implies ownership and control, at least to some extent. However, when it comes to legal problems, "evidence" is often a real problem. Even though you may know that you were unaware of a thing's presence, if that thing is found there by police, a prosecuting attorney would want to argue that this alone is circumstantial evidence of "possession."

This is a big topic -- too big to cover well here. I encourage you to research the legal meaning of "possession" under Minnesota criminal law. Still, the simplistic and short answer to your question is "yes" and "to avoid the risk to the extent posible, be sure there is no contraband in your apartment."

(By the way, I am an advocate of legalization of marijuana. See www.norml.org )