CINCINNATI (WKRC) – As the state begins to roll out recreational marijuana, nearly 400 police K9s across Ohio trained to detect pot could soon face an early retirement.
A local police department doesn’t want to retire these highly trained dogs and is placing them inside a local high school to continue to serve.
“Once the handler comes online, it can be anywhere from eight to 12 weeks of classes day in and day out to get the dogs certified,” said Heintzelman.
Craig Heintzelman is the sole K9 officer for the Miami Township Police Department. He works with three different K9s, including two drug detection dogs, Gator and Seeker. The newest of the group is 1-year-old Seeker.
“He is certified in heroin, cocaine, meth, and extracts,” said Heintzelman.
Heintzelman said that after voters approved a measure to legalize recreational marijuana in Ohio, the department made the decision not to train Seeker to detect the smell of marijuana.
“We were trying to be more proactive with it,” said Heintzelman.
But that created challenges for 12-year-old Gator, who’s trained to find marijuana. Heintzelman said that it’s tough to retrain a dog.
“There’s ways of trying to do it, but ultimately we’ve trained the dog to search for marijuana, so it’s really hard,” said Heintzelman.
The department is now finding a new way for Gator to continue to serve. This time it will be inside local schools.
“He can go into a school and not cause any problem on the road with the changes in the marijuana law. We can use him in a school to keep them drug free,” said Heintzelman.
(WKRC)
But, the loss of a K9 is a big hit for departments. Heintzelman estimated that the cost of replacing a dog is upwards of $16,000. Lawmakers in Columbus have introduced a bill that would set aside a portion of the revenue from recreational marijuana sales for departments having to replace their K9s.
“Maybe they just put the dog on the road two or three years ago and the dog has a life span of seven to eight years of working. If you take that dog off the road just in that two year time frame and give them another dog, the cost isn’t there,” said Heintzelman.
Heintzelman’s hope is that all dogs who will soon have to come off the roads, can find other areas to continue working.
“These aren’t dogs that everyday just go home and sit on the couch, they need to work. They want to do things and be apart of things,” said Heintzelman.
H/T: wsbt.com
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