Vermont police dogs won’t search for pot

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BARRE — Vermont police dogs are no longer trained to recognize the smell of marijuana, a decision made in preparation for possible marijuana legalization.

“The class that is going through right now is not being trained to alert on marijuana odor,” said Robert Ryan, Vermont’s head K-9 training coordinator.

This year marks the first Vermont Police Academy K-9 class in which marijuana is left out of the training.

“We started talking about it last year and we made the decision for this class to not do marijuana,” said Ryan.

The reason according to Ryan, is the assumption that Vermont will legalize marijuana. “And if for some reason it doesn’t become legalized, it’s an odor that (dogs) can be trained to alert on later.”

Because pot has such a strong scent it’s easy to train the dogs, according to Ryan. For that reason, it is the drug that most police dogs...

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