Minichan

• Hot
• Topics
• Bumps
• Replies
• New topic
• History
• Watchlist
• Bulletins
• Events
• Folks
• Search
• Shuffle
• Stuff

Topic: Drug sniffing dogs are having to retire because they've been trained to detect marijuana...

cccuuunnttt !RwordOooFE started this discussion 7 years ago #80,971

Anonymous B joined in and replied with this 7 years ago, 27 seconds later[^] [v] #941,180

cccuuunnttt !RwordOooFE (OP) replied with this 7 years ago, 54 seconds later, 1 minute after the original post[^] [v] #941,181

@previous (B)
Take that back.

Anonymous B replied with this 7 years ago, 35 seconds later, 1 minute after the original post[^] [v] #941,183

@previous (cccuuunnttt !RwordOooFE)

cccuuunnttt !RwordOooFE (OP) replied with this 7 years ago, 3 minutes later, 5 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #941,185

Anonymous C joined in and replied with this 7 years ago, 35 seconds later, 6 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #941,186

Anonymous D joined in and replied with this 7 years ago, 15 seconds later, 6 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #941,187

Anonymous B replied with this 7 years ago, 21 seconds later, 6 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #941,188

@941,185 (cccuuunnttt !RwordOooFE)

cccuuunnttt !RwordOooFE (OP) replied with this 7 years ago, 3 minutes later, 10 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #941,191

Anonymous C replied with this 7 years ago, 3 minutes later, 13 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #941,194

Syntax joined in and replied with this 7 years ago, 2 minutes later, 16 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #941,196

Damn just damn. Based on a quick search
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/can-an-old-drug-dog-learn-new-tricks-like-how-not-to-smell-marijuana-in-states-where-its-legal

“You can’t retrain dogs when it comes to marijuana,” adds James Woodford, a forensic chemist who created and patented the odor of cocaine that serves as the industry standard when it comes to training dogs to sniff out the substance. (The government wouldn’t allow him to do the same for weed because it’s a naturally occuring odor, whereas cocaine is odorless until its fermented in a human environment, which, of course, is totally gross.) “Say you always use marijuana stored in a Ziploc bag while training a dog, they’ll start alerting to the smell of Ziploc bags. There’s something called extinction training, where you train them not to alert to the bag, but you can’t do that with marijuana. Illegal and legal weed smell the same. As a matter of fact, dogs usually get more training on marijuana than they do other drugs because of its prevalence and the way law enforcement has traditionally approached policing marijuana as a priority.”

The silver lining, though: Police officers can no longer use drug dogs to support their searches when the smell of weed is the only thing constituting probable cause, at least in Colorado, where this became the rule of law last summer, more than two years after weed was legalized in the state. “Again, since legal marijuana gives off the same odor as the illegal stuff, that kills the probable cause aspect of it,” Woodford explains. “Cops have done a lot of lying about the odor of marijuana. In my opinion, cops will write their reports and use drug dogs to support their searches after the fact, so even if they don’t end up finding any marijuana in a state where it’s not legal, the cop will say, ‘I smelled the marijuana, and the dog did too!’ to make sure they’re in the clear when it comes to probable cause. Many cops use their dogs to substantiate their [unconstitutional] searches, which has created a lot of untruthful testimony.”

As for the dogs? Given the opinions of Cooper and Woodford as well as many of their colleagues, maintaining that they can be retrained feels both condescending and dangerous, since the dogs’ false triggers could lead to further escalated policing over something that is now (or will be) legal. (Though, unfortunately, retraining and “desensitization” is what the Ontario Provincial Police in Canada and K-9 units in Washington, D.C., are attempting.) And so, early retirement seems like the only option. “

Anonymous D replied with this 7 years ago, 13 seconds later, 16 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #941,197

Svet !jzYkdX7lIw joined in and replied with this 7 years ago, 39 minutes later, 55 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #941,214

Anonymous C replied with this 7 years ago, 14 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #941,223

• Topic locked.[Top]