Phillip Smith / Independent Media Institute as posted on
AlterNet.org
May 2018
The stench of desperation is in the air. Old anti-marijuana shibboleths have lost their potency, but the Macon County Sheriff's Office has a brand new reason not to free the weed: They will have to kill their drug dogs.
Police dog - Photo Credit: Flickr/Michael Pareckas
As the state legislature ponders a bill that could make Illinois the
10th state to legalize marijuana, law enforcement is getting nervous. Old
anti-marijuana shibboleths have lost their potency, but the Macon County
Sheriff's Office has a brand new reason not to free the weed: They will have
to kill their drug dogs.
As the Daily Pantagraph reported in an article about what happens to
marijuana-sniffing drug dogs in states where it is legal, the dogs typically
are trained to detect a number of drugs and it is difficult to retrain them
not to alert on marijuana. Other states that have legalized it have either
retired their pot-sensitive dogs, tried to retrain them, or used them to
search for large, illicit amounts of marijuana.
But Chad Larner, training director of the K-9 Training Academy in Macon
County, scoffed at the notion of retraining, saying it would be "extreme
abuse" to try to do so, and "Larner said a number of dogs would likely have
to be euthanized."
That claim is a ridiculous "red herring," Illinois NORML executive director
Dan Linn told the Pantagraph. "The idea that legalizing for adults to have
an ounce on them will equal ... all these dogs being euthanized, that seems
kind of ridiculous and hyperbolic,” he said.
Other Illinois drug dog cops contacted by the Pantagraph largely agreed with
Linn. They said retired drug dogs "typically live with their handlers" and
they "dismissed the idea that any would be euthanized because of
retirement."
The Macon County sheriff doesn't go as far as his drug dog trainer, but he
is a staunch opponent of marijuana legalization because…drug dogs.
"The biggest thing for law enforcement is, you're going to have to replace
all of your dogs,” said Macon County Sheriff Howard Buffett. "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."
Sheriff Buffett isn't just any sheriff. He's the son of Omaha billionaire
investor Warren Buffett, and he's used his family wealth both to finance law
enforcement spending in the county and to basically buy his way into the
sheriff's office. Earlier this year, he announced that his Howard G. Buffett
Foundation was donating $1.4 million to the county to pay for everything
from new records systems to new guns and ballistic vests. He was appointed
to his position by retiring Sheriff Thomas Schneider last September and will
serve until a new sheriff is elected in November.
Buffett also financed drug dogs across the state. His foundation paid $2.2
million in 2016 to support drug dog units in 33 Illinois counties. No wonder
he and his employees are doing the 2018 version of the classic National
Lampoon cover:
Phillip Smith has been a drug policy journalist for the past two decades. Smith is currently a senior writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute.