Illinois police: Keep pot illegal -- or we'll kill the dog

[iscooterliberally]

As Illinois lawmakers debate whether to become the 10th state to legalize recreational marijuana, a few law enforcement officials in the state have put forth this bizarre argument:

If Illinois legalizes marijuana for recreational use, law enforcement officials fear job losses for hundreds of officers — specifically, the four-legged kind.

Police agencies spend thousands of dollars and months of training to teach dogs how to sniff out and alert officers to the presence of marijuana, heroin, cocaine and other drugs. If pot use becomes legal, the dogs would likely either have to be retrained — which some handlers say is impossible or impractical — or retired.

“The biggest thing for law enforcement is, you’re going to have to replace all of your dogs,” said Macon County Sheriff Howard Buffett, whose private foundation paid $2.2 million in 2016 to support K-9 units in 33 counties across Illinois. “So to me, it’s a giant step forward for drug dealers, and it’s a giant step backwards for law enforcements and the residents of the community.”

Later in the story, a K-9 trainer suggests some or most of the dogs will need to euthanized.

(By the way, if you think it’s weird that a sheriff would have a “personal foundation” capable of spending more than $2 million on drug dog units for other police departments, so did I. It turns out that Sheriff Buffett is the middle child of the billionaire Warren Buffett.)

Here's a link to this story in The Washington Post from yesterday:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2018/05/08/illinois-police-keep-pot-illegal-or-well-kill-the-dog/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.efa190b54895

Yes, we have come to the point where life imitates National Lampoon Magazine I suppose:

[dameatball]

1. I....er...a friend misplaces his pot all the time. I'll take one of those dogs.

[marble falls]

11. Not me! I like pleasant surprises, like that lost gram of hash I found six months later picking..

up a dropped last doobie of a baggie, just a a couple of inches under I couch I vacuumed under regularly. The spirit's way of saying "take this brother, may it serve you well."

Found a lost hit of microdot a month or so after it wasn't where I left. I found it right where I left it. The spirit's way of saying "cool it for a couple of weeks."

[ExciteBike66]

2. How much does it cost to arrest and prosecute people for pot possession?

How much does that cost compare with the cost of dog re-training?

[iscooterliberally]

3. Not to mention that the dogs get it wrong most of the time in any case.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/01/07/132738250/report-drug-sniffing-dogs-are-wrong-more-often-than-right

I remember reading that Australia did a study on this too, but I don't have a link for that.

[Locrian]

13. its the money they lose confiscating property that they're gonna miss

Those fancy armored SUV's and big screen tv's in the lounge cost money don-cha-know.
Not to mention overtime, the relatively low risk of pot offenders, the power trips, etc.

[dameatball]

4. Dogs get old. I have never heard of them being euthanized at a certain age.

If anything, they can probably be adopted and often are.....by their handlers.

We had an officer in my town do exactly that not long ago.

[iscooterliberally]

5. I know, it's another absurd argument from the drug prohibitionists.

It's like that DEA agent a couple of years ago that said the wild bunny rabbits were getting stoned on cannabis that was being grown outdoors in Colorado.

[GWC58]

16. At this point these prohibitionist

drug warriors are pulling excuses out of their asses, which is causing their sphincter muscles to expand.

[catrose]

15. I've contributed to dog buy backs so the handler could keep his dog

[Freethinker65]

6. So essentially they have no argument against recreational marijuana. Got it.

[SWBTATTReg]

7. This is an over-reaction by the IL police and idiotic too...

It's not like these dogs will live to 90 or 100 years old (saying they may have to kill some animals because of reduced demand). Dogs are pretty smart and I think can be retrained (I may be wrong) but the 3 dogs I have seem pretty smart when I move their food/water bowls to mop the kitchen floor (and I forget to tell the dogs where I moved it (usually I led them to the new location and they figure it out immediately)).

[n2doc]

8. I guess there are no other drugs to worry about.

Got it. No meth or opioid issues in Illinois. Do they have a bridge to sell too?

[LakeArenal]

9. Beat me by 8 minutes.. Yep, drug problem all solved in IL if pot is legalized.

Hey wait..... Makes all the more sense to legalize it... Hmmm...

[HDSam]

10. And yet

none of the other states where marijuana is legal seem to have an issue. I should know, I live in a state that legalized recreational marijuana and have a family member that is a county sheriff’s department K-9 handler. We had several detailed discussions about this and there doesn’t seem to be an issue at this time nor over the last year since the law was enacted.

I do have concerns about dogs alerting on now-legal drugs that result in a search, but they're certainly not considering euthanizing or retiring animals.

[askyagerz]

12. Those poor southern counties

Won't be able to harass poor people anymore...

[GWC58]

14. Southern states can ask for them

“We not legalizin marra wanna, so let us use them! We’ve plenty of lives to ruin!!