Search and Seizure: The Detection of Marijuana by Trained Dogs

Our society has witnessed, in recent years, the growing menace of drug abuse in the United States. In an effort to curb the distribution and sale of controlled substances such as marijuana, police have resorted to novel means of ferreting out concealed drug caches. The use of specially-trained animals to detect odoriferous drugs among the personal effects of suspicious persons is currently favored by both courts and law enforcement agencies. Recently, in United States v. Bronstein, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the use of specially-trained dogs to detect odors emanating from personal baggage consigned to a public carrier is not a search constitutionally protected by the fourth amendment.