Ohio K-9s trained to detect marijuana being forced to retire
GEAUGA COUNTY, Ohio (WJW) – The old saying, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” is proving to be true now that Ohioans have legalized marijuana, effectively ending the careers of hundreds of police dogs across the state.
Deputy Randal Primer is with the Canine Unit at the Geauga County Sheriff’s Office. He says his partner, a two-year-old German shepherd named Justice, is highly trained and can track people who are lost and find drugs that are hidden.
“He specializes in meth and crack and cocaine. He’s really great at it too. He could find it in a car, in a house,” said Deputy Primer.
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But Justice was not trained to detect the smell of marijuana.
Geauga County Sheriff Scott Hildenbrand made that decision when the dog was purchased and trained because the sheriff realized that marijuana would eventually be legalized in the state, and that’s exactly what happened when Issue 2 was approved in 2023.
“The dogs that were trained in marijuana will always smell that marijuana. Getting them broke of that, I don’t know if it could be done, so Justice, not knowing marijuana, will only hit on the cocaine or crack or meth that’s in that car,” said Deputy Primer.
It turns out that police dogs across the state that were trained to detect marijuana are being forced to retire because of legal issues created by the legalization of pot.
“If he goes up on a traffic stop and had a sniff around the car, and if he was trained in marijuana and hit on it, we would search that car and right there. That’s a ‘no no’ now because marijuana is legal and so you can’t go into the car because of it,” said Deputy Primer.
A state lawmaker from Northeast Ohio says the impact on canine units across the state is an unintended consequence of the passage of Issue 2. He is now proposing legislation that would help ease the burden on departments affected by the unusual situation.
State Rep. Sean Brennan (D-Parma) says nearly 300 pot sniffing police dogs will need to be replaced, and his bill would grant police agencies up to $20,000 to buy, train and equip dogs like Justice that will not react to marijuana.
“They’ve really become an important part of the police department, you know, they save lives, put a lot of bad people in jail,” said Rep. Brennan. “A lot of departments kind of saw this coming so they stopped buying dogs that were imprinted with marijuana. The big question that people are asking is, can the [marijuana] dogs be retrained? And the fact of the matter is that they cannot be retrained.”
The proposed legislation to buy new police dogs, that has a onetime price tag of $6 million, is now in the early stages of consideration, but Rep. Brennan says he is hoping that will be approved by the General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Mike DeWine later this year.
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