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Police dogs sniff out pot on ferries
By Hempology | August 5, 2002
Search of car decks leads to arrests, marijuana seizures
From the TIMES COLONIST, August 1st, 2002
Police have started using drug-sniffing dogs on B.C. Ferries to root out people transporting illicit
narcotics.
A civil liberties watchdog is condemning the action, saying it’s an abuse of police power to randomly
sniff out drugs among passengers on public ferries without a search warrant.
West Vancouver police revealed Wednesday that Operation High Seas had led to three arrests and the
seizure of seven kilograms of marijuana.
A dozen plainclothes officers on Tuesday sealed off the car decks on four return trips between
Horseshoe Bay and Nanaimo.
West Vancouver police Sgt. Bob Fontaine said the five drug-sniffing dogs, which came from detachments
around the Lower Mainland, detected the drugs from outside the cars.
Police waited for owners to return to their cars before making an arrest for possession of narcotics,
searching the cars and seizing the drugs.
“Nobody even knew we were there,” Fontaine said. “They’re all upstairs, and we’re down on the car
decks.”
“It was the most non-invasive way of trying to detect any drugs on the ferry. I think you might see
this will happen again in the future.”
Fontaine said criminals are using B.C. Ferries vessels to transport drugs through Horseshoe Bay.
The marijuana is probably coming from numerous grow-ops on Vancouver Island, as well as from ships
on the west coast of the Island, he said.
John Dixon, president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said police have invaded the privacy
of passengers.
“They have no business trolling around prospectively on the ferries unless they have a good and
reasonable, probably grounds that a specific criminal offence is being committed,” said Dixon.
“If you can’t find anything else for police officers to do than ride around on the ferries, on the
hope of bustine somebody for having dope in their car, then West Vancouver obviously needs fewer
police officers.
“It’s a completely unreasonable use of what we are told is scarce police resources.”
A 43-year-old man and 30-year-old woman from Lasquiti Island are facing drug trafficking charges, along with
a 37-year-old man from Lantzville.
Police seized small amounts of marijuana from five other people, but didn’t charge them.
Fontaine confirmed that police did not have a search warrant. However, Fontaine said the police had
reasonable and probable grounds to board the ferry.
“Our grounds would be that we’ve stopped numerous people coming from the ferries, we’ve had large
seizures from the ferries, and we’ve also received information in the past that drugs are being
transported on that ferry,” Fontaine said.
Once police boarded the ferry, reasonable and probable grounds to check vehicles were established
by the the drug-sniffing dogs.
“In a case like this, the dog itself will indicate that there is some drug in a vehicle. A person
is arrested with the grounds used. We’d use our dogs as the grounds,” he said.
Fontaine said this is the first time West Vancouver police have done a large-scale drug search on
a ferry. More searches may be done in the future “on a sporadic basis, not a regular one.”
He did say police did not choose Tuesday for any reason, only that they were able to divert enough manpower
for that day to conduct the search.
Fontaine said police had B.C. Ferries’ permission to board the ship.
A spokeswoman for B.C. Ferries confirmed the corporation received notice from police about their plan
to board a ferry to search for drugs. “B.C. Ferries works and cooperates fully with any police detachment,
whatever the detachment might be,” said communications coordinator Deborah Dykes.
Officers from five police agencies were involved in the search, spearheaded by the West Vancouver police.
They included two officers from New Westminster city police, one from Vancouver city police, a Canada
Corrections officer, and one officer from Vancouver International Airport RCMP. The ramining officers
came from the West Vancouver Police Department.
Dixon said that regardless of the police officers’ explanations, he feels they are wrong in their
belief that they can board a ferry without looking for a specific person.
“If the polcie are going to begin travelling on the ferries and running up and down the rows of cars
sniffing for drugs, that seems to me to be an unreasonable infringement of privacy,” he said.
“I don’t believe that the police have reasonable and probably cause to believe that criminal activity
is being committed by specific individuals on that ferry.”
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