Can Police Tell The Difference Between Hemp And Marijuana Without Taking Evidence To The Lab?

The police rely on a couple of different tools when identifying whether or not drugs are present in a sample, like drug-sniffing dogs. In that instance, the drug-sniffing dog was trained on a set of substances that they are able to identify and alert to their handler, however, they don’t have different alerts for different substances. They just say whether or not it’s something that they have been trained on. The problem is that the dog is not smelling THC; it’s smelling cannabis terpenes, which give it its scent. Those terpenes are shared by the hemp plant, which has a lesser concentration of THC, and the drug dog can’t tell the difference.

The police would have to rely on a presumptive test kit that uses a series of ampoules. You break pouches that allow a different chemical to come into the mix with the sample, which change the color of the sample in the presence of certain compounds. They tell you whether or not those compounds or similar compounds are present. They don’t have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt in the field to arrest you, they just have to have probable cause. Unfortunately, these tests don’t distinguish between hemp and marijuana. Assuming you never admit to them that it is marijuana, they will have a difficult time proving it. They might still arrest you for it, but it’s likely that the charges will be rejected. You may not even need to end up hiring an attorney.

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