Whitehall cannabis detecting K-9s are still employed, police say

WHITEHALL, Ohio (WCMH) -- Now that legal sales of recreational marijuana are underway, are local law enforcement canines trained for cannabis detection out of a job?

The short answer is no. Whitehall law enforcement officers said two out of their three dogs are marijuana imprinted. However, that doesn’t make those two useless, and officials said having this unit is very beneficial. 

“It's valuable right now, a valuable resource that we have because Rico essentially is a tool for the officers to use,” said Whitehall Officer Matthew Perez, Rico’s handler. 

Rico is Whitehall’s newest canine. He is not trained to detect marijuana. Whitehall Deputy Chief Dan Kelso said this is something the department has been working on for years.

“Once hemp was legalized, most if not all training from that point on from anybody that trains dogs stopped imprinting the dogs on marijuana,” Kelso said. 

Sniffing out cannabis is not the only thing Whitehall K-9s are used for. Kelso said they are looked at as dual-use dogs. 

“They are imprinted to find drugs, but they also have a secondary use, which is tracking suspects, protecting handlers, finding articles, searching buildings,” said Kelso. 

Once K-9s are marijuana imprinted, they can’t be untrained. If anything, the way they go about traffic stops may change a bit. Regardless, Officer Perez says everything he stops somebody, he asks the same question. 

“Hey, since laws have changed recently, are there any guns, drugs in the car that includes marijuana?” Perez said, quoting his new routine.

“If people say that there's no marijuana, there's no marijuana paraphernalia, meaning, you know, there's no pipes, there's no grinder, there's no marijuana roaches in the car, then it's good to run your dog even though they are marijuana trained," Perez said. "So if there are those then we call out dogs that aren't trained on marijuana like Rico here. So again, that's a valuable resource to have that option.”

The Columbus Division of Police said they also have not retired any of their canines. Officers said they have 11 dogs that are active and in service, and while they can’t disclose how many are marijuana imprinted, they say their handlers and dogs are trained to detect multiple things. 

Earlier this year, Ohio lawmakers introduced a bill that would give police agencies grants to offset the cost of occurring, training and equipping narcotics dogs that don’t alert to the smell of cannabis. Kelso said all together, K-9s aren't cheap.