{"id":7520,"date":"2014-04-06T12:49:36","date_gmt":"2014-04-06T16:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=7520"},"modified":"2014-04-25T19:48:08","modified_gmt":"2014-04-25T23:48:08","slug":"the-future-police-narcotics-dogs-and-marijuana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=7520","title":{"rendered":"The Future of Police Narcotics Dogs and Marijuana"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Drug<\/a>Supporters of legalized medical marijuana will have their opportunity in November to let the voters decide on whether medical marijuana will be available to patients.\u00a0 The controversial ballot initiative was approved by the Florida Supreme Court.\u00a0 Four legislative bills have been introduced which deal with defining, authorizing, and regulating medicinal cannabis and its infrastructure.\u00a0 How will all of this affect law enforcement?\u00a0 Not much…for now.<\/p>\n

Most recently, though, in Colorado and Washington State, decriminalization of recreational marijuana has changed the way police narcotics detector dogs go about their business.\u00a0 The obvious issue is whether a narcotics dog’s alert still constitutes probable cause to perform a warrantless search of a vehicle or to obtain a search warrant.\u00a0 Since the dog cannot tell his handler if he is alerting to a small amount of legal marijuana or some other illicit drug, in these states, the legality of sniffs and searches with dogs cross-trained in marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin have come into question.<\/p>\n

The answer for the Washington State Patrol is to replace existing narcotics dogs with ones that were never trained to alert to marijuana odor.\u00a0 WSP initially considered retraining their K9’s so that they would not be rewarded for alerting to marijuana, but that move was rejected.\u00a0 Conversely, Seattle Police Department decided that desensitizing their current dogs to marijuana was viable.<\/p>\n

\"Drug<\/a> \"Drug<\/a> \"Drug<\/a> \"Drug<\/a> \"Drug<\/a>A third option was taken by the Tacoma Police Department:\u00a0 business as usual.\u00a0 Because marijuana possession is still illegal for minors and in quantities exceeding one ounce for those over 21 years of age, TPD is still training and maintaining their K9’s to detect marijuana.\u00a0 They also cite that marijuana is still illegal by federal standards.<\/p>\n

Law enforcement agencies in Colorado are the same predicament.\u00a0 It appears these varied approaches will coexist until there is federal case law on the matter.\u00a0 Until a brightline rule is established, departments are adopting the answer with which they are most comfortable from a legal viewpoint.<\/p>\n

Back to Florida.\u00a0 The potential legalization of medical pot will likely have no impact on current standards and training for narcotics teams.\u00a0 However, Senate Bill 1562<\/a>, introduced by Florida Senator Dwight Bullard (D–South Florida), seeks to make 2.5 ounces of marijuana or up to six pot plants legal in Florida.\u00a0 If the recreation marijuana trade ever becomes an over-the-counter business, plan on police agencies scrutinizing what is going on out West right now.<\/p>\n

Randall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Supporters of legalized medical marijuana will have their opportunity in November to let the voters decide on whether medical marijuana will be available to patients.\u00a0 The controversial ballot initiative was approved by the Florida Supreme Court.\u00a0 Four legislative bills have been introduced which deal with defining, authorizing, and regulating medicinal cannabis and its infrastructure.\u00a0 How will all of this affect law enforcement?\u00a0 Not much…for now. Most recently, though, in Colorado and Washington State, decriminalization of recreational marijuana has changed the way police narcotics detector dogs go about their business.\u00a0 The obvious issue is whether a narcotics dog’s alert still constitutes probable cause to perform a warrantless search of a vehicle … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,5],"tags":[658,650,330],"class_list":["post-7520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-k9","category-legal","tag-k9-narcotics-dog","tag-narcotics-detector-dog","tag-police-k9"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t