Pubdate: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 Source: Washington Times (DC) Column: Inside the Beltway Copyright: 2013 The Washington Times, LLC. Contact: http://www.washingtontimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/492 Author: Jennifer Harper Page: A2 THE NOSE KNOWS NO MORE Narcotics dogs have one less job to do in the state of Washington. Now that marijuana has become legal within the borders, many law enforcement agencies, including the Seattle Police Department and Washington State Patrol, will no longer train their drug-sniffing canines to alert handlers to marijuana. The Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, in fact, advised police that their pooches were not required to smell out the once-illegal stuff; the task has been eliminated already from the doggy performance standards test. But it's complicated. Officers will no longer be able to rely solely on a sniffer dog's alert when determining probable cause for a search warrant, according to the association. Police must now inform judges that a narcotics dog might be alerting for a "legal" amount of marijuana, Washington State Patrol spokesman Bob Caulkins, told KATU-TV, an ABC affiliate. "Moving forward, it makes most sense not to train dogs to alert to marijuana as that would likely lead to unwarranted investigatory detentions of people who are not breaking any law," said Alison Holcomb, drug policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union. The state of Washington, meanwhile, has hired a $300-per-hour "pot czar" to help communities and officials ease into a cannabis-friendly marketplace. Ironically, an out-ofstate group won the job: Massachusetts-based Botec Analysis Corp. was chosen over 112 other groups. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom