Course Description: The Patrol Investigation Course is designed to teach police officers about working drug cases. This is not limited to just investigative techniques, but an overall aspect of the drug trade. There is more to being a well-rounded police officer than just knowing the law. Police officers need to know about drug trends and the reasons people use drugs.
We will also examine the citizen’s viewpoint versus the viewpoint of the police. This will let us know what we need to do in order to work better together. Police officers need to know more about drugs to help with their investigations, so we will look into several different drugs.

We will check what the drugs do to a person, what the drugs look like, and learn about paraphernalia and packaging for different drugs. Then we will look at some techniques that will assist in finding drugs during a pat-down of a suspect. This will involve a look at the U.S. Supreme Court Case of Minnesota vs. Dickersonthat deals with plain feel.

Last, we will learn how to make drug arrests, especially of street drug dealers and people dealing out of drug houses, without buying drugs.

Course Length: 8 hours

Course Objectives: At the conclusion of this course, the participant will be able to:

  • Provide the history of drug use, distribution methodology and current trends of illicit distributors and counterdrug law enforcement.
  • Show narcotics and dangerous drugs likely to be encountered by patrol officers in their law enforcement duties.
  • Present multijurisdictional technique standards currently being used in covert and overt narcotic investigations.
  • Present Supreme Court decisions related to investigation.

To apply for access to E Drug training, follow the instructions on the information about applying page. Upon verification of your military, law enforcement or criminal justice employment status, you will receive an email providing information on accessing restricted classes.