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I used to work 911/dispatch and nobody gave a shit about weed. It's still not even broadly legal where I worked.
Do you think people call 911 to report someone smoking pot? I doubt that has happened since the 90s.
What happens on the street during police encounters and what people call you about are not the same thing.
It happens all the time. The world is a very big place and not everyone is exposed to it. There’s plenty of adults who have a huge bias against cannabis, many of those have never seen, smelled, or sampled any before
Policies vary on this place to place, and of course there's no accounting for police who don't bother to follow the policies
But as a current dispatcher.
Yes, people do call about that. I went into some more detail on that in my other comment.
Phone calls are only half of what we do, we're also the ones on the radio with the field units. If they pull a traffic or pedestrian stop, they call it in to us over the radio so we can check their status, send backup, run information for them, etc. because if we don't know they're out on, for example, a traffic stop and something happens, we otherwise wouldn't know about it until it's too late. They give us a short disposition at the end of the call- if someone was cited, parties advised to separate, they turned the music down, crowd dispersing, subject in custody, etc. We don't get all the details, we don't get their full reports or anything, but we have a pretty good general overview of the outcome.
Paramedic x15 years. I have been called to a poison gas leak because someone's dog got sprayed with a skunk.
Yes. I don't think it; I know it. I actually took those calls.
Current 911 dispatcher here, same kind of experience.
Recreational is not legal in our state. FWIW, I don't smoke myself.
Seen our officers give plenty of warnings for weed, but really the only time anyone gets cited for it is when the person is already getting taken in on multiple charges and being a massive dick about it so the officers are really throwing the book at them.
I know at least one of the sergeants in my county used to smoke a lot because he went to high school with me. I've occasionally seen him enter some colorful notes into calls, like that he gave someone a "warning for the electric lettuce"
I know a handful of my fellow dispatchers smoke, and I'm pretty sure at least one of my supervisors does, and even more of my coworkers admit to smoking in the past (as long as you can pass the drug test to get hired, past drug use is not a disqualifier for our agency, though lying about it could be if something about it comes up on your background check, and unless they have reason to think that you're under the influence on the job we're not subject to testing otherwise)
We pretty much all roll our eyes when we get a call where the main complaint is "someone's smoking marijuana"
We have to enter something about it, we can't just ignore a 911 call for liability reasons. But we all know it's a waste of everyone's time and resources. We don't really have a specific code to enter it as so unfortunately we usually have to enter it as something like "suspicious activity" which is a fairly high-priority call, but when we can we'll try to bury it in something trivial like a noise complaint because cops don't really need to be going out lights & sirens to tell someone to be more discreet with their smoking.
Wow, that would not fly where I worked. We were drug tested and grilled on whether or not we had ever used any drugs in the past, including weed. Your department's way is definitely better. There's no reason a dispatcher shouldn't be able to relax on their own time.
Yeah, overall the policies where I am are pretty damn sensible. Technically we're not supposed to, but unless you do something stupid like show up to work high, I'd have a hard time thinking of a way you'd get in trouble for it.
Of course if you ended up getting in trouble somehow on your own time, since it's still illegal here it would probably lead to some sort of disciplinary action, revoked certifications, termination, etc. which I suppose is understandable
It's always interesting to me how different some of these policies are from one agency to another. I see a lot of dispatchers in other places talking about how intense their background checks were, and they had to do a polygraph test and all of that. My background check process was all pretty out-of-sight/out-of-mind. Filled out some paperwork, I don't even think they called any of my references (although to be fair, I was able to list a few firefighters and such as references, and got a friend of a friend who works here to vouch for me, which I'm sure helped) no polygraph, did have to go to the county detectives to get fingerprinted during training, but technically I was already hired at that point, and that was about the extent of it.
Nah, but cops can ignore someone being actively stabbed in front of them because they want the attacker to tire himself out first.
Also, many districts ignore 911 calls (even ones about violent offenses) all the time with no repercussions.
Many districts, perhaps. But not all districts. Liability is a huge issue in the 911 call taking / dispatch career field. The cops may have immunity, but everyone else doesn't.