MASON, Mich. — The legalization of recreational marijuana in Michigan is having an impact on law enforcement and their canine co-workers.
FOX 47 News' Carla Bayron talked with the Ingham County Sheriff's Office about the future of their K-9 unit now that pot is legal.
Deputy Paul Narlock and his K9 partner of more than three years., Smoke, have a very special bond.
"It gets to a point where I know what he wants to do and he knows what I want to do, and we get to go as a team," Narlock said.
Smoke is trained in article, building and area searches, tracking, and narcotics.
"He's trained on marijuana, methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine."
But since pot is now legal in the state, establishing probable cause for the drug is illegal so the Ingham County Sheriff's Office is no longer using their K9s to detect for any drug.
"The K9s indicate the [drugs] the same way so for now we can't tell the difference if its meth or marijuana," said Sgt. Andy Daenzer, who's head of the K9 Team.
The dogs can be retrained off of detecting marijuana, but that could be challenged in court.
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"At some point I would guess that there would be case law down the road as to someone who will challenge that if a dog was initially trained on this, how can they proof them off it? That will be for the courts to decide on some of these issues in the future," Daenzer said.
Daenzer added that the sheriff's office doesn't have any plans to re-train their dogs at the moment, but they're not too concerned about no longer being able to use K9s to establish probable cause, because in 90% of the calls they get per year, deputies already have reason to search vehicles and buildings.
About 20% of police dogs could be forced into early retirement [nbcnews.com] because they were trained to detect marijuana, which is now legal in several states.
Smoke and the Sheriff's Office's other K9s won't be retired.
"They're trained in so many other things that retiring Smoke or any other dogs; they're losing out on a bunch of different possibilities," Narlock said.
Daenzer said that the K9s they purchase in the future will not be trained to detect marijuana.
