Made-in-Alberta protocols change ways dogs sniff out deadly fentanyl
Alberta RCMP is leading the way when it comes to new police service dog drug detection protocols.
Previously, sticking their nose in drugs was a police dog’s business. Now, the canines sit beside suspected drugs when they are found, said K Division Deputy Commissioner Todd Shean in a year-end interview.
“Now the dogs are sitting back ... so if they detect it — versus putting the dogs in harm’s way — they sit,” Shearn said.
The new training was started in Canada at the Innisfail, Alta., training facility, and K Division officers have done demonstrations and training for police departments across the continent with officers from the United States and Mexico already receiving training and a long wait list of others hoping to learn the new techniques.
“It was quite spectacular to watch,” Shean said.
Because powdered fentanyl is so potent, the RCMP created a liquid form for training purposes. Ten drops of the liquid are placed on a makeup remover pad and hidden away for the German shepherds to find in their training.
Dog handlers now carry a nasal naloxone spray which works on canines and humans to stop an overdose.
The new protocols were needed as Alberta police made record drug busts in 2017, fuelled in part by the growing fentanyl crisis.
In July 2017, the Mounties and Edmonton Police Service busted a drug trafficking operation that had the largest fentanyl pill seizure in Canada with an estimated $4 million in illegal substances at a Sturgeon County home being used as a fentanyl processing lab.
On Dec. 2, Mounties and the Canada Border Services Agency seized close to 100 kgs of cocaine in 84 bricks.
According to Alberta Health, there were 482 accidental opioid overdose deaths up to the third quarter of 2017, an increase from 346 in 2016 at the same time period.