For decades, if police suspected there were drugs in a car, they’d call in a police dog and have the pooch sniff around the vehicle.
If the dog smelled drugs, officers typically had enough probable cause for a more extensive search.
“Those days are over at this point,” said Aurora police Sgt. Scott Pendleton, who oversees the department’s four-person Marijuana Enforcement Unit.
Because someone could have legal marijuana in their car, Pendleton said simply walking up with a drug-sniffing dog typically won’t give officers enough probable cause to search a vehicle. Instead, he said officers have to consider a variety of circumstances — including the age of occupants and how much pot they have.
It’s one of many complicated questions facing law enforcement in Aurora and around the state in the new age of legal marijuana.
Pendleton said the department still investigates marijuana cases if users are under 21, or if they have more marijuana than the state law allows. The bulk of the marijuana cases APD handles are connected to residential grow operations. Typically, patrol officers investigating unrelated cases come across them, and Pendleton’s team investigates.
Last year, the unit investigated 144 home grows. Since 2009, they’ve investigated 652 marijuana grows.
The department executed 64 search warrants, issued 121 summonses and filed felony charges in 14 cases last year, Pendleton said.
While people 21 and older are typically allowed to have up to three ounces of harvested pot and 12 plants if they have a medical marijuana card, Pendleton said the department sees people with far more marijuana than they are allowed.
In some cases, officers have seen 1,000 plants in a home.
“That’s still a felony,” he said.
At the Arapahoe County district attorney’s office, Assistant District Attorney Mark Hurlbert said prosecutors still see marijuana cases.
And, Hurlbert said, the black market and crime associated with marijuana is still an issue even though the drug is legal.
“When the amendment was going through the supporters were talking about how it would reduce crime or get rid of crimes related to marijuana, and that certainly has not happened,” he said.
Last summer an Aurora 19-year-old was gunned down in a Taco bell parking lot over what police said at the time was a relatively small amount of marijuana. Three teens were later charged with murder and are awaiting trial.
Hurlbert said it seems most drug-related crimes — including murder and robberies — are connected to marijuana today as opposed to methamphetamine or cocaine.
“They’re not shooting each other over meth, they’re shooting each other for marijuana and the money associated with it,” he said.
And many in law enforcement — both in Colorado and surrounding states — say Colorado marijuana is regularly shipped out of the state.
Last month, Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman announced charges against what she called a massive marijuana trafficking ring that shipped $12 million worth of Colorado marijuana out of state. The ring operated under the guise of a legal marijuana business, Coffman said, but they were actually shipping much of the product elsewhere.
“This investigation shut down one of the largest and most sophisticated criminal enterprises uncovered since Colorado voters passed Amendment 20 in 2000. (The) drug ring is further evidence of Colorado’s thriving black market. Illegal drug dealers are simply hiding in plain sight, attempting to use the legalized market as a cover,” Coffman said in a statement announcing the indictments.
During the investigation, law enforcement seized 4,600 pounds of marijuana, nearly 2,000 marijuana plants, 10 pounds of hash oil, and $1.4 million in cash, according to the statement.
“More and more criminals are moving to Colorado to exploit our state’s drug laws, sell marijuana throughout the United States, and line their pockets with drug money,” Assistant Special Agent in Charge for the Denver Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration Keven R. Merrill said in the statement. “DEA and our federal, state, and local partners will continue to investigate, arrest, and prosecute criminals who believe that Colorado is the marijuana capital of the country and use our state as their base of operations for their drug trafficking activities in other states.”
Stories in the Special Section
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Colorado 4/20 Day: Despite legalization, criminal problems still persist, police say
Congrats to the sentinel for covering what is really happening around marijuana use and the illegal market. Yet another area where voters were deceived.