Retired Narcotics K-9 Finds Bale Of Marijuana On Florida Beach

A retired narcotics canine in Florida was taking a leisurely stroll along the beach when it got another taste of action and alerted its owner to a bale of marijuana that had washed up at high tide, authorities said.

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said a man was walking his dog, a retired narcotics canine, along the beach at Hanna Park on Monday, April 13, when he tried to get the animal away from what he believed was a Portuguese man o’ war, but turned out to be marijuana.

Body-worn camera video shared by the sheriff’s office shows deputies responding to the scene and finding a sodden package of marijuana with the plastic ripped open.

“I thought it was a Portuguese man o’ war because that plastic part was sticking up,” the man tells deputies. “He kept going over to it, and I’m like, ‘Dude, walk away! Leave! Leave!'”

But the dog, trained to sniff out illegal drugs, wouldn’t leave the bundle. When the man looked closer, he realized it was not a man o’ war.

“The more I can, like, see, and then, you know, I wanted to make sure I use my knife because it could have been fentanyl,” the man says.

Based on the degraded condition of the marijuana, it had likely been in the water for some time.

The deputies asked if the man’s dog was trained to sniff marijuana, and determined the dog had been alerting, running back and forth between the package and his owner.

“Our officers quickly responded, collected the square grouper’, and delivered it to our property and evidence vault,” the sheriff’s office said.