CLEVELAND, Ohio – If you had to move millions of dollars in cash and controlled substances, who would you trust with such a risky job?

Someone who won’t steal the product or the money. Someone who will get there on time. Someone who knows how to react if thieves try to rob you.

For many companies that transport cannabis and the cash generated by it across Ohio, there are few better candidates than current or former police officers.

Take Dan Gladd, a police chief and the manager of security for Ashwood Risk Management Systems, a Cleveland-area company that specializes in protecting the cannabis industry.

Ashwood and other security companies use armed personnel riding in normal work vans to transport marijuana and the cumulative millions of dollars generated from its sales between cultivation sites and dispensaries.

The skills required for law enforcement transfer well to the cannabis transportation industry because officers are trained to “be aware of your surroundings and know how to react and know what to avoid,” said Gladd, the chief of police at West Farmington, a village of less than 600 people in Trumbull County.

“At the end of the day, whatever your job is, that’s what your scope is, that’s what your mission is. The rest of it is just part of where you’re working,” Gladd said. “Your job is … to manage security. That’s what your focus is. It’s not on the product you’re around.”

Ohio voters’ 2023 decision to legalize marijuana has made strange bedfellows of the same officers who for years fought in the trenches of America’s war on drugs and now work in Ohio’s emerging cannabis industry.

Talaria, a Pennsylvania-based company that has cannabis transportation hubs in Columbus, Warren and Toledo, aims to hire only drivers who are retired law enforcement officers. Hours are flexible, and the job pays between $20 to $25 per hour. The company is growing in Ohio, with plans to have 300 employees by year’s end, said Bill Teper, who recruits former officers for Talaria.

“As far as what makes us good employees is … you learn situational awareness. Being aware of your surroundings, a lot of tact and diplomacy when you’re dealing with the public on a daily basis, and I think this translates very well to the private sector,” said Teper, who spent more than 30 years with the Pennsylvania State Police.

Talaria and Ashwood are far from the only companies that seek out former police officers to protect their products. A 2022 report from a TV station in Missouri found many officers were trading their badges for careers in security for medical marijuana. A 2015 report from the Associated Press found that not only were former law enforcement officials working in security, but they were also high-ranking officials in Illinois’ cannabis program.

Read more at Cleveland.Com