Sniffer Dogs Caught Me, But Not My Drugs

It was Byron Falls Festival in 2013.

An army of shitty hatchbacks and pre-loved station wagons descended upon North Byron Parklands like horde of party-hungry orcs. As dust from the interlocking web of dirt roads created a glorious brown fog, we revellers sucked it in and begun the arduous task of unloading our gear. Any seasoned festival goer knows that you need camping goods, a decent supply of food, eskies, clothes and on top of all that, you have a bunch of grog and illicit substances to sneak in. Torment doesn’t quite describe it but after the third trip into the campgrounds, the gear becomes heavier and your desire to fuck it all off and hitch an early ride to Van-Dingerz Land becomes tempting.

It was this temptation that got me caught by the sniffer dogs.

My third trip through the gates and past the suspicious eyes of security and police was the most dangerous. After using my first two trips to scope out the intensity of the police presence, I decided to sneak in the bulk of my drugs on the third. Keeping a cool, calm and collected persona, I slid past the two dogs – even briefly stopping to pat one – before going through the security gates like an oiled up naked guy. It was a proud achievement but one that was short lived.

The next trip involved bringing in my mate’s tent poles and my last pill. No hassle. Knowing that these supposed sniffer hounds missed my big stash, I decided to pocket the last pill and drop it on the way in. Approaching the entry gates, I saw one cute sniffer dog getting fondled by a group of even cuter girls and knew this was my window of opportunity. I lifted the pill to my mouth, opened wide and dropped the little bugger, which then proceeded to rebound off my teeth, skirt the rim of my lips like a basket ball around a hoop and then fall to the ground.

Yes, I’m the dickhead who can’t even do drugs right.

With a bag of tent poles awkwardly slung around my shoulder, I bent over to pick the pill up only to feel to a warm, saliva-fuelled breath against my forehead. Looking up with my fingers set firmly around the pill, I came eye to with an adorable black Labrador. It was sort of like that moment where the Alien gets all up in Sigourney Weaver’s face and the little Alien tongue comes out is all like, “this isn’t going to end well for you.”

The dog, tail wagging and generally ecstatic to have caught another startled human, was no doubt awarded to an array of delicious meaty treats following a hard day’s work. I get screwed over the dog gets bacon. Where’s the justice in that?

Anyway, the two cops with the dog search the tent poles, ask where the rest of my drugs are and arrest me, before taking me off to the police tent for a full body search. Fully aware that I had been sprung, I bit the bullet and asked the younger, weedier looking cop if this search would involve a finger up my asshole. His mouth said “we’ll see” but his eyes said, “you can be my Huckleberry.”

We won’t go into any details about what happened next, but for all the hype about how awesome dogs are at sniffing out the dodge factor, the little bastards missed the 2 grams of MDMA hidden next to my salt n vinegar chips during the previous trek in.

The only reason the dog sniffed me out is because I was stupid enough to drop a pill on the ground. Hell, I even had the nerve to pat one of the fuckers while there was enough MDMA just sitting in my shopping bag to score a court date. It’s just the problem of the sniffer dog myth– a myth that in recent years has begun to unravel.

Statistics taken from the NSW police in 2014 show that 64 per cent of the roughly 18 000 people stopped by sniffer dogs actually produced no drugs. Even worse, only 2.4 per cent of searches resulted in successful convictions. In 2011, 80 per cent of sniffer dog searches in NSW resulted in ‘false positives’, wherein the dog supposedly detects drugs but fails miserably. In Newcastle last year, only one in four people stopped by sniffer dogs actually had drugs on them. That’s a 25 per cent success rate. If drug detection was a uni subject, sniffer dogs wouldn’t even scrape through with a pass.

Despite this, the police continually bring sniffer dogs to every festival and dodgy train station they can find. Their argument is that even with such lacklustre results, sniffer dogs still work as a deterrent, which is just another ineffective attempt to stop people taking drugs. The well-known ‘panic overdose’ is a factor at festivals, where people spot the dogs, get frightened and take everything at once. More commonly though, sniffer dogs just change the way people sneak drugs into festivals with each year bring new and improved methods.

At the end of the day, my encounter with the police didn’t even matter. They only found one pill, which was not enough for court so I only got slapped with a fine. Meanwhile, with the rest of drugs safety at the campsite, I was able to attain the rank of Captain Cooked by the time The Preatures hit main stage at 1pm. The whole thing would be funny if it wasn’t so embarrassing for the police.

Wait… it’s still really funny.
_____
Photo by Billboard.