New laws are forcing Canadian drug dogs into early retirement

In Canada, on October 17 of this year, it’ll be legal to use pot medicinally or for recreation, without having to worry about getting into trouble with the cops. This is great news for users of marijuana products, those looking for a legal route to selling them, and for the police, as the possession of legal dope means that they can forget about it and deal with higher priority issues. Unfortunately, not everyone’s gonna come out of this with a win: a number of cops will lose their jobs as a result of decriminalization. From the CBC:

Earlier this month, the RCMP threw a retirement party in St. John’s, N.L., for a Labrador retriever named Luke. As the saying goes, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and as cannabis legalization approaches, that puts Luke and other dogs like him out of work. Luke, who sniffed more than five million of dollars’ worth of drugs during his time on the force, is one of 14 canines across the country who will be out of a job before October 17. Traffic and interdiction dogs like Luke are trained to detect cannabis, but once the substance is legal, they can no longer be used to establish grounds for search in a traffic stop.

Luke and his fellow former police service pups will no doubt be trotted off to caring homes where they’ll be able to enjoy their retirement from active duty. In the meantime, the RCMP are going to have one hell of a time training new drug dogs with marijuana excluded from their nasal vocabulary. The RCMP's not sure that it can be done in time to get the new dogs on the street before the rollout of legal Mary Jane takes hold. While traffic and interdiction dogs, like Luke, only represent 12% of the total number of pooches currently in service with the RCMP, if the replacement dogs aren’t ready in time to coincide with the new laws going into effect in October, the Mounties that normally roll with a canine partner will have to make due all by their lonesome.

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