Paul Roberts When the city council voted to allow cannabis retailers in tiny Union Gap Washington a few years ago police chief Gregory Cobb was quick to make his objections known. Cobb was sure legalization would bring more underage use and cannabis-related DUIs. He was also certain that the towns three cash-only cannabis stores would be sitting ducks for crime. We thought wed have a huge increase in calls for these three stores whether it be robberies in the parking lot or robberies inside the store or burglaries Cobb told me recently. I made it known to my council members that I thought this was a horrible idea. Legalization has brought challenges but the nightmare scenarios haven't materialized. Two years later Cobb admits that many of his initial fears were largely unfounded. Union Gap hasnt seen a rise in underage use or cannabis-related driving infractions. Officers get called to the retail stores Cobb says but its for the same types of calls that we get for any other business in town. Although Cobb is careful to say hes not endorsing retail marijuana sales. He wants to see more long-term data on DUIs and underage use. But he admits the things I projected would occur to date havent occurred. Police Chief Gregory Cobb patrols the streets of Union Gap Washington in mid-October 2016. (Jordan Stead for Leafly) Cobbs experience isnt unique. When Washington state voters approved recreational cannabis in 2012 many law enforcement officials predicted dire consequences. Those warnings often affected the way local governments dealt with legalization. In the city of Yakima next door to Union Gap strong opposition by police chief Dominic Rizzi figured heavily in the city councils decision to ban recreational stores altogether. Legalization has brought some new law enforcement challenges but a number of small town cops now concede that the nightmare scenarios havent materialized. Weve not seen a huge increase in what a lot of the public thought we were going to see says chief deputy Steve Brown who oversees drug operations in rural Okanogan County Washington. We havent seen thefts go up. We have not seen citations for speeding go through the roof. Burglaries have not gone though the roof. Have we had a few drug-induced DUIs? Yes we have. But no major spike. Its not like everyday were going out there an arresting three or four people on the highway who are high on marijuana. These are only anecdotal accounts. Like Cobb and Brown were still waiting for definitive data. But these early accounts do suggest that at the very least those impacts may be different than predicted. And given the increasingly significant role that rural communities play in cannabis farming that difference could be highly significant. Dire sky-will-fall predictions from small town police departments werent entirely unreasonable given the circumstances. Many rural communities are struggling with epidemics of heroin meth and other hard drugs. In Washington Oregon and California small-town cops have first-hand knowledge of the role that organized crime has played in black market cannabis farming especially on remote sites in national forests which can encompass tens of thousands of miles in rural Western counties. Further small-town cops like their big-city counterparts have grown concerned over the popularity of new products likeas dabs and edibles. Station 420 is one of three licensed cash-only cannabis retailers in Washington States Yakima Valley. (Jordan Stead for Leafly) That said in many rural communities the day-to-day law enforcement realities of recreational cannabis so far have been mundane: Mostly complaints from neighbors about the location of a retail store amateur extraction fires or the smell of a flowering crop. Also employee theft. Brown and his colleagues in Okanogan County which has nearly 60 grow operations initially worried that the new farms would be picked clean at If you were a banker would you give all your tellers access to the vault? Steve Brown Chief Deputy Okanogan County harvest time by nighttime fence jumpers. Yet of the two major thefts at county pot farms thus far both are believed to be inside jobs by employees or ex-employees. In one case surveillance video caught the thief using the access code for a cannabis storeroom. That might say more about a farms security protocols than the overall success of legalization. I dont know what kind of businessmen any of these people are Brown says of the farm owners. But if you were a banker would you give all your tellers access to the vault? Still legalization has added real complexities to police work that can be burdensome in small town departments. Drug-sniffing dogs for example must now be detrained for marijuana. If they arent suspects caught with heroin or meth can claim in court that their arrest was illegal because the police dog might have smelled their legal weed the scent of which is no longer probable cause for a search and arrest. While detraining dogs is fairly easy doing so has meant cops cant use dogs to look for pot on minors for whom pot is still illegal. Likewise while its still unclear whether recreational cannabis has been associated with higher rates of stoned driving it has made traffic stops more complicated. Because a dependable pot breathalyzer doesnt exist cops who suspect a motorist is high must either do a blood test which requires a warrant or wait for an assessment from a specially trained drug-recognition expert. Its just a lot more of a process says Chief Deputy Steve Groseclose who oversees drug enforcement in Douglas County. And its a challenge for us to be able to investigate those [cases] and at the same time handle emergency calls. Union Gap Washington in late autumn. (Jordan Stead for Leafly) Small towns and tinybudgets These problems arent unique to small towns. Seattle is also grappling with blood tests and drug dog re-training in addition to enforcement issues that most small towns dont see. The difference is that big-city police departments can more readily absorb the cost of these new cannabis enforcement issues. Small town budgets cant. Legal cannabis has increased our calls says Groseclose were not getting more money for law enforcement. I mean the state passes a law and they collect the money from taxes but I dont see it filtering down to the local sheriffs offices or counties very much. This points to another sore spot for small-town cops. Legalization advocates promised a flood of cannabis tax money to help defray law-enforcement costs. Yet many rural cops say the actual dollar amounts so far have been tiny. The black market is more resilient in rural areas. Locals dont want to be seen as doing it say police so they are keeping those backdoor connections. Money isnt the only promised effect that hasnt materialized. The argument that legalized marijuanawould bankrupt the black market hasnt been borne out in many rural communities. Part of that is economic. In the early days of the legal market legal cannabis was more expensive than the black market variety thanks to supply shortages and hefty state taxes. Prices have since droppedsubstantiallyand yet a shrunken black market still exists. For that police blame the social stigma. Many small-town residents fear being judged by their neighbors for going to a licensed cannabis retailer. They dont want to be seen as doing it says Cobb so they are keeping those backdoor connections. Rural police are skeptical about legalization expecting negative data but reconciled to dealing with a legal market. Mitch Barker executive director with the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Deputies likens that reluctance to the aftermath of Prohibition when many drinkers were slow to switch from their black-market dealer to new unfamiliar often costlier state-sanctioned liquor stores. If people had a good supplier of marijuana if they liked the dealer liked the product and liked the price theyre probably not going to just jump to state marijuana Barker says adding that a complete transition may take a generation or two of people saying Id rather be legal than save a few dollars. In the meantime the black market is not only active but possibly interactive with the legal market. A number of rural cops I interviewed suspect that recreational growers may be diverting some of their crop to the black marketin part because they believe the state cant realistically monitor how much finished cannabiseach of those farmers actually produces. Still for now rural police departments seem to be in a state of what might be called practical resignation: Still skeptical about legalization expecting negative data to appear at some point but reconciled to dealing with a legal cannabis market in the meantime. State legislators arent going to turn around and go back the other way and make it illegal [again] says Groseclose. It just wont happen. So were stuck with this experiment whatever it is. And even those small-town police officials who continue to lobby against a cannabis market may find themselves in a losing battle. In May the Yakima City Council politely but firmly ignored the advice of their anti-pot police chief and voted 4-3 to overturn the ban on recreational cannabis. Council member Holly Cousens who led the moveto lift the ban saidafter the vote: We heard the people. cannabis growingpolicepoliticsretail cannabis Paul Roberts Paul Roberts writes about business technology and natural resources. His work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times The Washington Post The (UK) Guardian National Geographic Rolling Stone Harpers and other national publications. His latest book "The Impulse Society" was published in 2014. He lives in Washington state. Politics Utah Republicans Laying Groundwork to Expand Medical Marijuana Politics Massachusetts Race Breaks Wide Open Politics Ex- Bears QB Jim McMahon Supports Legalization in Arizona Politics What Happens if Both Arkansas Measures Pass? The post A Wary Adaptation: Cannabis and the Small-Town Cop appeared first on Leafly. by Paul Roberts at Leafly