The drug dog program used by Newcastle Police has been labelled as 'wasteful and abusive' by the NSW Greens.
It comes after the party obtained data revealing there have been 684 searches as the result of suspicions raised by sniffer dogs in the Newcastle region over the four year period from 2014 to 2017.
Of those searches, only 150 resulted in the finding of illicit drugs - meaning around 78% of dog-prompted searches were unnecessary.
Greens MP, David Shoebridge says the searches are invasive and embarrassing.
"When you talk to people who have been the subject of a drug dog search, it's often happening on a train," he said.
"[Commuters] are literally pulled from their seat and all of the regular commuters they share the train with observe them.
"They're surrounded by police and police dogs before getting patted-down in public.
"It's a deeply humiliating process...and to think police are doing it on the basis of a drug dog indication that three out of four instances is wrong," he continued, "goes to show what a gross abuse of civil rights the drug dog program is."
David Shoebridge says the Greens have been running a Facebook campaign for four years titled 'Sniff Off,' which identifies where drug dogs operate and allows the community to avoid them.
NSW Police have defended their scheme, saying the dogs provide a vital service in keeping our public transport and events such as music festivals safer by acting as a deterrent and road to punishment for drug users.
However, the Greens MP believes the number of resources used to conduct the searches is "out of whack" with the amount of drugs they uncover.
Critics would say any quantity of an illicit drug is worth locating and confiscating, but that may not be the sentiment shared by Mr Shoebridge.
"I'm not an expert in this," he admitted, "but my understanding is that major drug dealers don't move their drugs around cities like Newcastle and Sydney using their Opal cards and public transport."
