Police K-9 unit costs skyrocketing with Marijuana Legalization
EASTERN SHORE, Md. – Local Police Agencies such as the Fruitland Police Department and Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office are being forced to adapt new marijuana laws, especially in terms of their K-9 units.
Sheriff Mike Lewis says he saw the writing on the wall with the financial impact for years, but is still seeing law enforcement agencies having difficulty adjusting to the new change.
“This has created a crisis across the country, not just in Maryland, in terms of a financial crisis for law enforcement agencies.”
Sheriff Lewis says this has cost agencies in Maryland, and nationwide, thousands of dollars in additional funds to either un-train dogs certified in marijuana detection or get brand new canines entirely.
“To purchase any canine is a huge investment. Thirteen to fifteen thousand dollars for any law enforcement agency.”
Some police agencies on the Eastern Shore were preparing for the financial impact of the legalization of Marijuana, but its implementation has caused early retirements for some seasoned canines, like Fruitland Police Corporal Josh Culver’s previous canine.
“He was really good at detecting CDS.”
“So, in my opinion, we saw this coming and I wasn’t going to train him off something that he’s been praised for finding for years, and now we are going to be like, “oh no, that’s bad. Don’t find that.” I didn’t want to do that to him.”
This encouraged the Fruitland Police Department to get a new canine for search and seizures to not muddy the waters with probable cause in a court of law, according to Corporal Culver.
“A defense attorney can say did your dog alert to marijuana, and you say no, he’s been trained off of it.”
“Did he ever alert to Marijuana and say, Well yeah,” Corporal Culver said. “He has in the past, but he’s trained off of it now.
“We can interpret what the dog is doing through his behavior changes, but we can’t talk to the dog.”
Marijuana legalization has also impacted the amount of guns police were able to get off the streets.
Chief of Fruitland Police Krah Plunkert said, “Last year, nearly 60% of our gun seizures came from searches due to the odor of Marijuana.”
The Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office says they have not been training their canines for Marijuana detection for years because of this, and the Fruitland Police Department says that the lack of marijuana detection when certifying a canine does not shorten the training process required for a dog to officially be able to conduct searches.
