Sniffed out and searched: one man's humiliation
By Stephen Gibbs
July 2, 2004
A man playing a poker machine on licensed premises in an inner Sydney suburb was interrupted by three police following the lead of a sniffer dog.
In a quiet side street outside, the man - whose English was quite poor - gave his name, date of birth and other details to the officers, two male and one female.
The man's pockets were turned out by one of the officers, who also shone a torch down the back of his jeans. Asked if he had anything in his underpants, the poker machine player appeared not to understand.
As two pedestrians went past, the man complied with a request to take off his shoes and socks. "Have you taken drugs tonight?" an officer asked him. "No never. Why take drugs?" he replied.
The officers thanked the man and left.
The November 2002 search is reported in a discussion paper by the NSW Ombudsman which supports concerns sniffer dogs are more likely to cause humiliation than uncover drug dealers, or even users.
In the first year after police were given increased powers to search for drugs, sniffer dogs located three people carrying heroin and 940 with marijuana.
Almost twice as many "drug dog indications" were made at Hornsby as at Kings Cross.
Drugs were found in only 27 per cent of searches following a drug dog indication, although some kind of admission - such as having been somewhere cannabis was smoked - was made during a further 44 per cent of searches.
In half of cannabis finds, the amount weighed less than 1.6 grams, and heroin was found on fewer occasions than its legal substitute, methadone.
The data comes from the Police Dog Unit's records.
Between February 22, 2002, when the Police Powers (Drug Detection Dogs) Act began, and February 21 last year, police sniffer dogs indicated the presence of an illegal substance on 4078 occasions.
The monthly number of searches spiked from May, when a regulation allowing sniffer dogs on rail and bus routes came into force.
Most of the indications were at railway stations and on trains, where there were 2505 detections, followed by licensed premises (869), roads and streets (498), and dance parties (79).
The average age of those searched was 28, and the median age 26. Police took no action following 74.3 per cent of searches.
The next most likely outcome was a cannabis caution, which was issued in 55 per cent of cases where any "formal action" was taken. Legal proceedings were started in 10 per cent of cases.
