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By Izzy Aparicio
Ohio’s legalization of recreational marijuana in November 2023 (Issue 2) has rendered nearly 300 marijuana-detecting police canines obsolete. Departments are faced with either retraining these dogs to focus on other narcotics or phasing them out entirely because of the legal ramifications.
Ohio lawmakers are considering legislation to fund the replacement of police dogs trained to detect marijuana. House Bill 396, sponsored by Rep. Stephanie Brennan (D-Parma) and Rep. Josh Williams (R-Sylvania), proposes allocating up to $20,000 per canine for acquiring and training new dogs.
Many police departments, however, had already stopped training dogs to detect marijuana when Ohio legalized hemp in 2018. Hemp and marijuana come from the same plant, so it was easy for the dogs to get confused. This raised questions about the reliability of K-9s and whether courts of law should use them as probable cause. In many states such as Virginia and Colorado, departments have retired large numbers of dogs because they deemed the smell of marijuana alone as inadmissible in court.
While this potential funding could benefit smaller departments that may have invested heavily in marijuana-detection canines, the financial impact on larger departments with broader budgets, like Cleveland or Columbus, might be minimal.
As of now, House Bill 396 awaits consideration by the House Finance Committee