4 Investigates: Drug sniffing police dogs’ future in limbo with legalization of marijuanaPosted by On


However, Hasso’s days detecting drugs are numbered. 

“He will be one of the dogs that’s out of service for narcotics,” said Sgt. Mosley. 

The reason Hasso and one other Farmington K-9  will be taken off narcotics detection boils down to New Mexico’s legalization of marijuana. 

Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe said his department’s dogs that are trained to detect marijuana will soon be retired out of that specialization because those K-9s pose a problem for establishing probable cause. 

“From the start, for the justice system that wrecks it,” said Chief Hebbe. 

THE PROBABLE CAUSE PROBLEM 

While a K-9 can indicate that a drug is present, it can’t communicate which drug. That means the K-9’s handler can’t determine if the dog found meth, heroin or a legal amount of marijuana. 

“So now marijuana is legal — if the dog alerts on it, and we got a search warrant, we’d be violating somebody’s rights,” said Chief Hebbe. “That meant the easiest, simplest thing was to just stop using those dogs for that purpose.” 

Once the dogs are trained to detect marijuana, they cannot be untrained or retrained. 

Conveniently, the Farmington Police Department recently purchased two new dogs from a vendor in Europe. Moving forward, the two new K-9s will receive a different kind of training. 

“We’re not going to train them in marijuana detection — we can still train them in narcotic detection but not in marijuana,” said Chief…

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However, Hasso’s days detecting drugs are numbered. 

“He will be one of the dogs that’s out of service for narcotics,” said Sgt. Mosley. 

The reason Hasso and one other Farmington K-9  will be taken off narcotics detection boils down to New Mexico’s legalization of marijuana. 

Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe said his department’s dogs that are trained to detect marijuana will soon be retired out of that specialization because those K-9s pose a problem for establishing probable cause. 

“From the start, for the justice system that wrecks it,” said Chief Hebbe. 

THE PROBABLE CAUSE PROBLEM 

While a K-9 can indicate that a drug is present, it can’t communicate which drug. That means the K-9’s handler can’t determine if the dog found meth, heroin or a legal amount of marijuana. 

“So now marijuana is legal — if the dog alerts on it, and we got a search warrant, we’d be violating somebody’s rights,” said Chief Hebbe. “That meant the easiest, simplest thing was to just stop using those dogs for that purpose.” 

Once the dogs are trained to detect marijuana, they cannot be untrained or retrained. 

Conveniently, the Farmington Police Department recently purchased two new dogs from a vendor in Europe. Moving forward, the two new K-9s will receive a different kind of training. 

“We’re not going to train them in marijuana detection — we can still train them in narcotic detection but not in marijuana,” said Chief…



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