Is it possible and cost-effective to teach an old dog new tricks? This question has been on the mind of the police departments in Ohio since the state legalized industrial hemp and the value of drug dogs came into question since the smell of hemp is identical to that of marijuana.
Of special interest is the concept of “probable cause” arising from the Fourth Amendment which guarantees that Americans should, among other things, be free from unreasonable seizures and searches.
This means that the police must have reasonable grounds to warrant the need for them to conduct a search, whether of a vehicle, premises or someone’s body. The fact that drug dogs cannot tell the difference between marijuana (which is illegal for recreational use) and hemp (which is legal in the state) means that an officer cannot rely on an alert provided by a sniffer dog to conduct a search on suspicion that someone could be carrying an illegal drug.
Drug-sniffing dogs are trained to detect several illegal drugs, such as marijuana, heroin and cocaine. However, results from the field indicate that most hits are for marijuana rather than the other illegal drugs on the radar. Since drug dogs react in the same way when they sniff marijuana, hemp or any of the other substances that the dogs were trained to detect, the practicality of continuing to use these dogs comes into question since the police will be exposed to liability claims for conducting searches without probable cause.
To compound matters even further, medical marijuana is legal in the state, so the continued use of sniffer dogs to detect for this drug is also likely to seem like harassment to people who are certified to use medical marijuana in the state.
These developments have prompted Thomas Quinlan, the interim Columbus Police Chief, to send a memo informing police units that new guidelines will soon be released for the department’s canine units. Quinlan added that they would no longer be training dogs to sniff for marijuana.
The memo was in response to an announcement by the chief prosecutor in Columbus that he would no longer prosecute misdemeanor cannabis cases since the city’s crime labs aren’t equipped to test the THC level in a substance suspected to be marijuana.
Quinlan also added that it didn’t make any sense to buy testing equipment worth $250,000 so that you can use that equipment to issue $10 citations. This is in reference to a $10 fine that has recently been passed for people who are found in possession of less than 3.5 ounces of marijuana.
As more states get their hemp programs underway, this scenario is likely to keep playing out in the law enforcement community. For now, it appears that the drug-sniffing dogs in Columbus, Ohio may be up for early retirement.
Industry analysts would pay top dollar to hear what suggestions hemp industry players like Sugarmade Inc. (OTCQB: SGMD) and The Green Organic Dutchman Holdings Ltd. (TSX: TGOD) (OTCQX: TGODF) would have to keep illegal pot off the streets while safeguarding hemp farmers and other value chain actors from undue law enforcement inconveniences.
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