Cannabis is now legal in 17 states. In addition to having an impact on police officers and the courts, the change in laws is necessitating changes in another place you may not have considered: marijuana-sniffing police dogs are being removed from duty since they cannot be un-trained to detect the now-legal drug.
It costs $15,000 to train a police K-9 making these early retirements problematic for many jurisdictions, but cities are prohibited from using the dogs to detect illegal drugs if they are also trained to sniff marijuana due to a legal loophole that could call the whole search into question. It’s an implication that I doubt was considered when the laws were changed.
Do you have the equivalent issue on your team — where someone’s once valuable skills are no longer useful due to an external change? It’s easy to look back and see examples: the wizard typist who has been replaced by a computer or the engineer’s proficiency on a slide-rule that is no longer needed.
But look ahead. What changes are afloat in your industry that may impact what is valued in your organization in the future? Prepare now so you aren’t following the path of the K-9s and retiring too soon.
Source: Since the nose doesn’t know pot is now legal, K-9s retire by Denise Lavoie AP in the Telegraph Herald, 5/30/31, p. 19A