Legal pot puts 14 RCMP sniffer dogs out of work
CBC News | Posted: July 24, 2018 4:59 PM | Last Updated: July 24, 2018
Ability to detect marijuana could make dogs' evidence inadmissible in court
The upcoming legalization of marijuana in Canada is expected to create a lot of jobs for people, but it's putting one group of dogs out of work.
Fourteen RCMP interdiction dogs, which are used primarily to search for drugs, are being retired or sold to other forces because their training to sniff marijuana could cause problems for Crown prosecutors once pot is no longer illegal to possess.
"Our interdiction dogs are often used to form grounds to continue searching or to arrest people," said Staff Sgt. Gary Creed, a senior trainer with the RCMP's police dog service in Innisfail, Alta., where all of the national police force's dogs are trained.
If they are trained to sniff marijuana, some of their evidence would not be admissible in court, he said.
Some of the interdiction dogs were already close to the end of their working lives and will be retired as pets. Five or six others will likely be sold to other forces or agencies.
"It's definitely a strain. We didn't plan to replace these," Creed said. "There's 14 dogs that we have to replace."
- Trudeau says pot will be legal as of Oct. 17, 2018
- Pot-related charges at all-time low as legalization nears
- Calgary cannabis company partners with Saskatchewan First Nation
The remainder of the RCMP's approximately 170 dogs are general service canines whose pot-sniffing skills are still useful.
"A general duty dog that's trained with narcotics, they're used in deployment for narcotic detection," Creed said.
"[They are used for] people have already been under arrest, or they're there to support some type of statutory thing such as a search warrant. So the dogs now are just used to search to find things."
The initial training process for a dog paired with an officer takes about six weeks, he said.
"All these experienced handlers are going to be coming in and getting new dogs. We're planning on taking about 20 days to do that, about half the time."
"It's way easier to train the dogs than it is the man."
- MORE ALBERTA NEWS | 2 women die in highway crash southeast of Calgary
- MORE ALBERTA NEWS | Gluten-free foods for kids often have more sugar than regular products
- Read more articles by CBC Calgary, like us on Facebook for updates and subscribe to our CBC Calgary newsletter for the day's news at a glance
With files from Anis Heydari