STUDY ON THE FABRICATION OF MARIJUANA SCENT FORMULATION TO MEET THE PROFESSIONAL CANINE TRAINING DEMAND

Abstract

Narcotic scent traning aids (or pseudoscent, scent simulation, scent surrogate, scent reference) are
fabricated mixtures which are comprised of non-narcotic materials but odoriferously identical or have
specific scent signatures of a narcotic. Due to prominent advantages comparing to real narcotics in canine
training, narcotic training aids are now more and more widely used in many countries. In present study, two
commercially marijuana training aids were collected and analyzed for the purpose of producing a similar
canine training aid. Both collected samples and our fabricated product were tested with certified marijuana
police dogs (dogs trained with real marijuana) and used to train new canines, which were then tested for
their ability to detect real marijuana samples. With high rate of alerts to different real marijuana samples in
field trials, the study showed that our marijuana scent formulation could be used to substitute real
marijuana in canine training and help to overcome current difficulties due to strict legal framework in
supply, usage and management of real narcotics