Nothing to sniff at: Bill would help pay to retire Ohio drug-detecting K9s under legal cannabis

By PATRICK ORSAGOS and BRUCE SHIPKOWSKI
ASSOCIATED PRESS

WHITEHALL, Ohio (AP) — Two Ohio lawmakers are sponsoring a bill that seeks to ease the financial burden on law enforcement agencies that will have to replace their marijuana-sniffing dogs. That’s because Ohio voters approved a plan in November to legalize recreational marijuana use. And it makes replacing the trained K9s one unintended consequence. The bill would provide each law agency up to $20,000 per dog to offset costs of acquiring, training and equipping new narcotics dogs. Nearly 400 police dogs in Ohio trained in marijuana detection will need to be retired under legalization. Because the dogs cannot be reliably retrained to forget the smell of cannabis, officials say, any alert they give to the presence of drugs could be challenged in court.