this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2024
917 points (97.8% liked)

Comic Strips

12728 readers
2204 users here now

Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.

The rules are simple:

Web of links

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] TurtleTourParty@midwest.social 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Do they test everyone's shoes or do you just have to be extremely unlucky?

[–] rumschlumpel 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'd assume they're just doing the rounds with drug sniffer dogs. Those dogs have crazy sensitivity.

[–] skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Drug dogs have an average success rate of about 44%.

If they're sniffing around a Latino that rate drops to 27%.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/01/07/132738250/report-drug-sniffing-dogs-are-wrong-more-often-than-right

They can sort of smell drugs, sometimes, but more often than not they are simply a tool that manufactures probable cause.

[–] rumschlumpel 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It's not that they " can sort of smell drugs", they are extremely sensitive to any trace smell of drug. Your linked article confirms that:

Dog-handling officers and trainers argue the canine teams' accuracy shouldn't be measured in the number of alerts that turn up drugs. They said the scent of drugs or paraphernalia can linger in a car after drugs are used or sold, and the dogs' noses are so sensitive they can pick up residue from drugs that can no longer be found in a car.

Search so thoroughly that you would even find the tiniest crumbs left on someone's shoe sole and that 44% "success" rate would probaby jump up considerably.

Though the false positives that are mentioned in the article are also an issue, but probably less so if you're regularly doing the rounds at airport waiting queues.

[–] nifty@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

That’s too bad, so much that happens in World War Z (book) depends on dogs being able to smell sus shit out