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Bob Layton: Legal loophole in drug dog case

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Bob Layton: Legal loophole in drug dog case
WATCH ABOVE: In this week's editorial, Bob Layton weighs in on a story that saw a B.C. justice throw out a case against a man charged with trafficking 27,500 fentanyl pills due to a charter violation – Feb 22, 2019

Benjamin Franklin said it back in 1785: it is better for 100 guilty persons to escape than for one innocent person to suffer.

It’s something law-abiding people are supposed to believe in, but sometimes it takes more than a spoonful of sugar to make this legal medicine go down — and in this case, maybe a few fentanyl pills would have helped.

There were, after all, over 27,000 of them available in B.C. taken from a car stopped by police for speeding.

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The officer was suspicious and had a drug dog check out the vehicle. The dog is supposed to sit to acknowledge he smells drugs. The officer says the dog could not sit completely because the car was up against a curb.

So the drugs were found, but because the dog did not sit completely, the judge ruled the officer did not have proper grounds to search the vehicle and had to let the driver go.

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Over 27,000 Fentanyl pills.

I understand the law as written, but I think the lawyers who wrote it went too far.

If police can stop every car on the road and have the driver blow for impairment, searching his lungs as it were, why can’t they search every car for drugs?

Let me know what you think.

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