What happens to police dogs when marijuana is legalized?

K9 units, also known as police or sniffer dogs, are used to detect odors and detect suspicious odors. In the age of legal marijuana, their services are becoming increasingly irrelevant as different states are forced to retire them due to the legal complications they offer. Police dog retirement isn’t as threatening as it sounds; these guys are simply put up for adoption or sent to another state to do their jobs.

Police dogs are trained to sniff out narcotics, including cannabis. Dog warnings give police officers a likely reason to conduct a search. This becomes a problem with legal marijuana programs, as dogs cannot distinguish between a large amount of cannabis or a single joint – or even between cannabis and other forms of illegal narcotics.

RELATED: Marijuana Legalization Forces Sniffer Dogs To Retire Early

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All dogs trained by police officers to sniff out marijuana are likely to be retired once their state legalizes cannabis. It is unlikely that these dogs can be retrained; Dogs are unlikely to be able to forget a smell or stop a reaction they’ve learned their entire lives. In order to continue using K9 units, new dogs must be brought on board and trained to alert police officers to the presence of drugs such as cocaine, MDMA, heroin, and other illegal substances.

While depriving dogs of their purpose in life is sad, dogs are pretty bad at sniffing drugs, according to a report published by Reason. One example they provide is Lex, an Illinois drug sniff dog. The dog alerted for narcotics in 93% of the cases, but was wrong in over 40% of the cases. This is a disturbing statistic that suggests that dogs are simply giving cops ample opportunity to search people and cars.

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Police dogs are also biased towards their handlers and will pick up their clues even when drugs are not around. This gives too much power to the traders and the ability to search people for no likely reason.

RELATED: How Accurate Are Drug Sniff Dogs?

With legal marijuana programs, states like New Mexico are being forced to withdraw their sniffer dogs. These can be taken over by their owners or donated to another state that does not already have a legal marijuana program. Other states, like Colorado, have ruled that police need to determine a likely cause before K9 units are launched. Hopefully more and more police dogs can retire soon. We wish you lots of naps and treats.