Ohio K-9s trained to detect marijuana being forced to retire

[Le Français]

I've never trained a dog for drug searches, but I have for search & rescue, barn hunt, sheds, etc. They all start being taught to alert to things like birch and anise before moving on to other scents. Dogs are pretty smart and quickly stop alerting on old training scents once you stop rewarding them for it, but I don't have to justify any of my alerts with a defense attorney...

OL

Actually, folks who prosecute are not trying to justify anything with a defense atty, only the judge/court who rules the evidentiary issue in the first instance and the finder of fact (usually a jury) in the second, to the extent applicable.

Words in this context mean things. Please consider staying in your lane.

PS- I am certain my admitted "snark" in my comment above, is at least, in part, connected to your Israel thread comments. Having said that, It chaps me a bit when folks talk about things like the law, law enforcement, medicine, science and military matters without any meaningful training/education/experience re the same and do not effectively caveat their comments before doing so.

0ddl0t did write “with a defense attorney…”, which I read to mean “…contesting the issue.” not “to a defense attorney”. An action is justified to someone, not with someone.

[Coyotesfan97]

A seasoned dog that’s been imprinted and trained to find Marijuana has been rewarded in training for finding hundreds if not thousands of times. They’ve been rewarded for street finds. I’ve never heard a police dog trainer argue for unimprinting a dog. If it was a something that could be reliably done there’d be a booming business doing it.

It gives an argument for the defense that is difficult to overcome. It’s why some drug runners started carrying legal amounts of marijuana with loads of illegal drugs.

[0ddl0t]

I didn't think I was being ambiguous, but just in case:

1) Dogs can absolutely be trained to ignore scents they were previously trained to alert on. It is an extremely simple, albeit time consuming, process where you alternate between 4 conditions:

• search area with no desired scents whatsoever
• search area with scents you want to be alerted to
• search area with scents you want to be alerted to and also marijuana you don't
• search area with marijuana

Under no case do you reward the dog for alerting on marijuana. And you keep doing these over and over in different orders. 30-60 minutes training sessions at a time, 2-3 times a week. After a couple weeks to a couple months, the dog will no longer alert on marijuana.

2) Whether the courts will have faith in the integrity of searches performed by retrained dogs is an entirely different matter. You should note that the various news articles generally didn't consult reputable dog trainers for quotes, but rather politicians and lawyers. Given that ill-trained and nefarious handlers already have issues with false alerts and that training quality varies dramatically, it makes some bureaucratic sense for departments to just avoid the appearance of an issue rather than face defending the quality of training of every specific dog/handler combination.


PS: handler cheating is a big enough problem that in many scent work trials judges will ask the handler what the dog's alert is before the run (e.g. my dog sits, my dog barks, my dog paws at, etc). A nefarious handler could still cue a dog to alert, but if they're having to do that their dog is slow enough to be out of contention...

[DDTSGM]

I didn't think I was being ambiguous, but just in case:

1) Dogs can absolutely be trained to ignore scents they were previously trained to alert on. It is an extremely simple, albeit time consuming, process where you alternate between 4 conditions:

• search area with no desired scents whatsoever
• search area with scents you want to be alerted to
• search area with scents you want to be alerted to and also marijuana you don't
• search area with marijuana

Under no case do you reward the dog for alerting on marijuana. And you keep doing these over and over in different orders. 30-60 minutes training sessions at a time, 2-3 times a week. After a couple weeks to a couple months, the dog will no longer alert on marijuana.

2) Whether the courts will have faith in the integrity of searches performed by retrained dogs is an entirely different matter. You should note that the various news articles generally didn't consult reputable dog trainers for quotes, but rather politicians and lawyers. Given that ill-trained and nefarious handlers already have issues with false alerts and that training quality varies dramatically, it makes some bureaucratic sense for departments to just avoid the appearance of an issue rather than face defending the quality of training of every specific dog/handler combination.


PS: handler cheating is a big enough problem that in many scent work trials judges will ask the handler what the dog's alert is before the run (e.g. my dog sits, my dog barks, my dog paws at, etc). A nefarious handler could still cue a dog to alert, but if they're having to do that their dog is slow enough to be out of contention...

Hmm, sounds like you know something about scent dog training.

[BillSWPA]

Isn’t marijuana still a schedule I drug under the Federal Controlled Substances Act and therefore illegal under federal law, regardless of state law?

[WobblyPossum]

Isn’t marijuana still a schedule I drug under the Federal Controlled Substances Act and therefore illegal under federal law, regardless of state law?

Correct but these aren’t federal LE agencies being discussed. The alerts these dogs are indicating and the cases those alerts lead to are being litigated in state courts. Federal LE K9s trained in narcotics detection like those used by BIA Police Officers for example are still being trained to alert for marijuana, not necessarily because anyone is looking to charge marijuana in federal court, but because probable cause is probable cause and if the marijuana alert leads to a massive fentanyl seizure, it’s all good in federal court. That search isn’t going to get thrown out.