How do LEOs know what marijuana smells like?

**Jenna** · 01-08-08, 05:36 AM

How do LEOs know what marijuana smoke smells like? Do they get training about it?

I thought about this after reading the thread about marijuana odor wafting to a police station: http://www.lawenforcementforums.com/...ad.php?t=24050

A lot of law enforcement organizations prefer to hire LEOs who never used marijuana or hung out with marijuana-using friends. So aren't there some LEOs who start out not knowing what marijuana smoke actually smells like? How do they learn? It's not like it can be googled.

**Beans** · 01-08-08, 05:42 AM

Most people are not good about hiding their dope. So once you find it you will remember the smell forever.

**Shoestring** · 01-08-08, 05:46 AM

Training and Experience! Marijuana is a very distinct odor, and if you have smelt it once, you will now what it is a second time around. Plus, just because you have not used something doesnt mean that your friends growing up hadnt. I had friends that smoked a lot of pot growing up, I wasnt down with that, but I didnt care what they did. Departments cant hold against you the stupidity of your friends but they can hold your actions against you.

Plus, during field training, hopefully you can have the rookie come across some and you can direct them as to what it is (These days like if they dont). All you need is one experience with MJ, and you will know what it is after that

**Lazy Fed** · 01-08-08, 08:52 AM

Plus they have those incense thingys that smell like weed. Actually depending on what type of weed it is, it will have a different odor to it

**Resident Smart Ass** · 01-08-08, 09:26 AM

Marijuana?

Never heard of it

**AlDeputy** · 01-08-08, 09:34 AM

During my time in the Military Police we had what we called controlled burns, that is where we would burn a small amount of marihauana and expose our MP's to the smell so that we could testify in court to the fact that we did infact know what marihauana smelled like.

**Hannibal** · 01-08-08, 09:45 AM

**Rhino** · 01-08-08, 09:55 AM

To answer your question, Jenna: For me (and I can only speak for myself) of course I knew the smell from my high school days (you couldn't and probably still can't go to a concert without smelling it). But in case some of us trainees lived a sheltered life, in the academy they passed around a sample of raw marijuana and told everyone to smell it. Then towards the end of class, they burned a small amount in the class room (it was a small amount, and stale, so no- no one got buzzed) so that everyone in class could say they have smelled burned marijuana in their training.

I've heard since that instructors have gotten away from that (probably because some tightwad complained), so I guess they have to wait until they encounter it in the field which, honestly, doesn't take long.

**OXCOPS** · 01-08-08, 10:08 AM

We weren't always cops.

Seriously, I learned on the street. You stop someone smoking something odd smelling, then find a baggie of that green, leafy substance. 2+2=Jail.

**K9brando** · 01-08-08, 10:09 AM

In basic training, we did a control burn of marijuana and got to smell it there. I also have some pills made with cannibis that I burn for demonstrations to the general public. It smells like the same thing. Those pills were given to me by the narcotics agent in my deparment. I don't where he got them from but he gave me like a hundred of them or so. You stick it in a bowl and light it and it gives off a marijuana odor. That little pill cannot be taken for a high though!!!

**Terminator** · 01-08-08, 10:28 AM

Originally Posted by K9brando

In basic training, we did a control burn of marijuana and got to smell it there.

Exactly.

Jenna, we're exposed to the odor of it in the police academy because the smell of marijuana gives us probable cause to search.

**campuscop** · 01-08-08, 10:33 AM

Our academy passed around some fresh marijuana to smell. Then they passed around a few (Used) pipes and had us smell the burnt smell. However I was in court one day and another officer from another agency was on the stand and the lawyer asked him how he knew what marijuana smelled like. (With a duh look.) The officer replied from smoking it in my high school days. Our judge even tried not to laugh at that one.

**Terminator** · 01-08-08, 10:36 AM

Originally Posted by campuscop

However I was in court one day and another officer from another agency was on the stand and the lawyer asked him how he knew what marijuana smelled like. (With a duh look.) The officer replied from smoking it in my high school days. Our judge even tried not to laugh at that one.

What an embarrassment.

**me again** · 01-08-08, 10:52 AM

I didn't inhale. I swear!

Originally Posted by AlDeputy

During my time in the Military Police we had what we called controlled burns, that is where we would burn a small amount of marihauana and expose our MP's to the smell so that we could testify in court to the fact that we did infact know what marihauana smelled like.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I smelled it while I was in the military police!

**k2.rocky** · 01-08-08, 01:09 PM

In our academies in Oklahoma they always have an agent from the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs come teach a class about it. At the conclusion of class they will burn a VERY SMALL piece of marijuana and allow the students to smell it. This is how we can say we were trained on smelling the odor.

**121Traffic** · 01-08-08, 02:11 PM

Same here as most cops. We have narcs come into the academy with all different drugs. They pass around small sealed samples of each to see what everything looks like up close, and they burn a small amount of the weed in a small box and have everyone come up where it is barely wafted towards your face.

**Wolven** · 01-08-08, 03:18 PM

Originally Posted by AlDeputy

During my time in the Military Police we had what we called controlled burns, that is where we would burn a small amount of marihauana and expose our MP's to the smell so that we could testify in court to the fact that we did infact know what marihauana smelled like.

This is what we did in the Air Force too. But I spent some time in college before the AF so I already knew what it smelled like. LOL (and no..not from using it)

**Big Sexy** · 01-08-08, 06:50 PM

Being out on the ground with 5 tons of it. You learn to recognize the smell.

**Jenna** · 01-13-08, 06:02 AM

I had been exposed to secondhand marijuana smoke in high school and college but didn't know what it was until someone specifically identified it to me after several years of college. I never tried marijuana and was scared of it (both because of its illegality and because I worried that even secondhand smoke could cause addiction or an allergic reaction), so I left the room when friends started smoking. I'm still not sure I could distinguish it from all the other scents in the air (like burnt piles of autumn leaves or firewood).

I hope someday google will enable people to search for scents, sounds, and images in addition to words.

**Shoestring** · 01-13-08, 06:38 AM

Originally Posted by Jenna

I had been exposed to secondhand marijuana smoke in high school and college but didn't know what it was until someone specifically identified it to me after several years of college. I never tried marijuana and was scared of it (both because of its illegality and because I worried that even secondhand smoke could cause addiction or an allergic reaction), so I left the room when friends started smoking. I'm still not sure I could distinguish it from all the other scents in the air (like burnt piles of autumn leaves or firewood).

I hope someday google will enable people to search for scents, sounds, and images in addition to words.

just wait, I am sure they are working on a scratch/sniff program right now