Big cannabis find means drug dog Flash gets his bone

A significant find of packaged cannabis leaf on a visitor to Spring Hill Corrections Facility yesterday afternoon saw drug dog Flash rewarded with his favourite toy – a rubber bone.

The four year old black Kelpie cross and his handler Carol were working with a team of staff, searching prisoners’ visitors and their vehicles for contraband items.

“Flash and handler Carol were inside the external Visits Reception area when Flash indicated that a young woman had drugs on her. Carol asked her to hand over what she had and the woman complied – producing a five centimetre by three centimetre package of tightly wrapped and compacted cannabis leaf from down the side of her pants,” says Prison Manager Gavin Dalziel.

“Carol then asked the woman to handover what else she had, suspecting that there was more where the first lot came from. The woman complied and from the waistband of her trousers produced another, larger, package.

The second package measured 10 centimetres by 3 centimetres and the total weight of the drugs found was 80 grams. The woman was detained at the prison until Police arrived and arrested her. She was later charged with Possession for Supply due to the amount of the drugs she had on her and has been banned from the prison for 12 months. Flash took a break while the paperwork was completed, chewing on his rubber bone as a well earned reward.

“Having Flash and Carol carry out their work at the prison certainly makes it easier to detect drugs. Visitors must pass through a metal detector, have their belongings pass through an x-ray machine and can be subjected to having their vehicles physically searched, but having a drug dog also check visitors provides an additional measure of detection – and an especially valuable one as drugs get smaller and easier to conceal, or people get more devious about hiding them,” says Mr Dalziel.

“Not only are drugs illegal, but they have the potential to be dangerous on many levels in a prison environment. Drug affected prisoners can be a danger to staff, other prisoners, and in very rare cases, the public.

“Drugs are seen as a valuable commodity in prison, and prisoners will go to extreme lengths to get their ‘fix’, including inciting violence or using ‘stand-over’ tactics to bully other prisoners into getting their families to bring drugs into the jail. The less we have of them the better off everyone, including the community, will be.”

ENDS

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