Drug Detecting Dogs: Not So Effective After All?

Drug sniffing dogs are a popular icon in the War On Drugs, seen walking around airports or riding around in a K-9 squad car.  They reinforce our notion that dogs are man’s best friend.  Whether or not they reliably succeed in the task of detecting drugs is another question.

The Chicago Tribune came out with an analysis yesterday of three years’ worth of data on drug sniffing dogs’ effectiveness.  The news was not great – the dogs were more often wrong than right when they alerted officers to search a car for drugs and/or paraphernalia.  Over 3 years, only 44% of alerts led to a successful finding of drugs/paraphernalia; if the driver in question was Hispanic, the success rate dropped to 27%.  (You will be relieved to know our tests are much more accurate, 98% accurate in fact – see our marijuana drug test for more information).

You may wonder then if this proves to be a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which is in place to protect against unreasonable searches and seizures.  What might surprise you even more is that there is almost no regulation of the process by which the dogs are certified and trained.  Supporters of the drug-sniffing dogs view this as one of the main problems and an important reason for the less than impressive stats.  Other issues include the fact that the dogs may be sniffing residue rather than drugs when they go into false alert mode.

While it’s good that the dogs can sniff out drugs, it’s clear that more training must be done to make sure that they do effectively and without bias.  A complete search of a car done without merit is a waste of time and resources and a source of humiliation for the person subject to it.  Hopefully this story will draw attention to the issue and lead to improvements where needed in dog detection programs.

German Shepherds are often chosen to be drug sniffing dogs in the US.

German Shepherds are often used in K-9 Units