LAKE COUNTY, Fla. – The Lake County School Board will vote on funding for a K9 handler specifically for vape detection at its meeting Monday night.
Samba, a 1 1/2-year-old yellow Labrador Retriever, would be dedicated to sniffing out vapes and THC on school campuses across Lake County.
“This is huge for the schools, really,” said Lake County Sheriff’s Office School Resource K9 Handler Erica Stamborski. “The school board and law enforcement saw the need for this with the rise of vape usage with students.”
According to the LCSO, across the 23 schools they cover in the county, school resource deputies wrote 323 citations for vapes in the 2022-2023 school year.
As for the 2023-2024 school year, as of Oct. 31, there had been 84 vape-related citations.
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“The usage of vapes, it’s not as easy to detect,” Stamborski said. “The kids can conceal it. They’re coming in different flavors and scents.”
Not only will Samba be able to detect liquid nicotine and THC, but she’ll also be able to detect the vape itself.
“When (the dogs are) smelling something, they’re getting every element of that item,” Stamborski said. “So just her training with, say, one type of vape, she’ll start to pick up that and learn to alert to the cartridge itself, the liquid inside, because sometimes we’ll be finding some that are almost empty. All those odors together will tell her that this is the item we’re looking for.”
The Lake County School Board is set to meet Monday night to vote on the $63,000 needed for Samba’s handler. Thanks to a charitable donation, Lake County Schools Superintendent Diane Kornegay said the school board was able to secure that funding.
“Teachers, administrators, parents and students are all concerned about the increased use of vape pens in schools,” Kornegay said. “We all want to make sure that our kids are safe and that this novelty that these vape pens of this become, that they’re very much aware of the dangers that exist within those pens.”
Samba’s training is set to begin on Nov. 27. District officials said Samba could be trained by early 2024.
Monday’s school board meeting begins at 6 p.m.
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