Your Uber Driver Can Secretly Report You On The App For Weed

If you get in an Uber reeking of weed, your driver can report you directly in their app, apparently. Uber’s Community Guidelines prohibit riders from breaking local laws, and specifically forbids them from “bringing open containers of alcohol or drugs into the car.” As one Uber user found out, just smelling like pot is enough to run afoul of Uber’s rules.

Los Angeles comedian Mike Mulloy hopped in an Uber recently, only to find himself served with a warning for “possession of an illegal substance,” Mashable reported. The email from Uber also cautioned that “another claim of this nature could result in permanent account deactivation.”

“An illegal substance?” Mulloy asked in a reply to his own tweet. “I smoked a blunt before I got in your car. Fuck all the way off.”

Despite the tweets being geotagged in Los Angeles, where weed is now fully legal, Uber ain’t okay with it. And they want to make sure drivers can report it clandestinely—more commonly known as narcing on someone. They told Mashable: “We have a zero-tolerance policy for drugs and alcohol for both riders and drivers. If a driver suspects a rider has drugs or alcohol, they can report it to us through in-app support.”

They did not respond to Mashable’s follow-up questions about whether the state’s cannabis laws came into play, or when the new feature was added to their driver app. They did confirm that the system runs on warnings, so you at least won’t be surprised with a permanent Uber ban. But still, this policy is sure to make a lot of stoners unhappy.

Given all the hubbub about people driving under the influence of cannabis in legal states, you’d think Uber would be making every effort to position themselves as the safe alternative. I’m certainly not the first person to juxtapose Uber with their closest competitor, but I feel compelled to remind you, dear reader, that Lyft gave everyone $4.20 off rides in Las Vegas on 4/20. Oh and, in addition to offering the same deal in Seattle, they hosted an entire stoner cooking competition to promote it.