Drug driving advice please

Convicted Driver Insurance

Acharavi

New Member
My son was arrested and drug tested on Friday night. It's unclear whether he failed the swab test. However a blood test was conducted. The details are as follows.

My son and a friend were getting out of his car in a carpark at approximately 19:00. A patrol car was driving past pulled up and the officer asked them what they were doing. They responded that they were just visiting the area.

The police officer was on her own and requested assistance to perform a search of my son and his friend.

On arrival of the backup my son and friend were searched and found in possession of a small amount of cannabis for personal use.

For note my son is a recreational and frequent user of cannabis although never uses the drug when driving.

The officers did not have a roadside drug test available and arrested both of them for possession and took them to the local police station. On arrival my son was then requested to conduct a oral swab test. At this point my son had been asked if he had recently used cannabis to which he responded that he had the previous night at approx 22:00.

After conducting the test the officer clearly did not know how to interpret the results and at one point stated that the test showed positive for cocaine as well as cannabis. My son has never taken cocaine in his life. She then proceeded to ask fellow officers what the results meant and also spent approximately 5 minutes on the phone asking for help.

My son also asked the question of how is it possible to perform the tests if the officers do not actually know how to read the results. To which the sergeant replied "shut up"!

The test result was not shown to my son and this was also stated in the interview with legal representation present. The police officer quoted that she had shown the results to my son and he replied that this was not true and he had not seen the results.

After the test the officer then requested a blood sample and a doctor was sent for. The blood specimen was taken at approximately 20:30.

In interview my son was asked if he had driven the car to which he replied no comment (under guidance). The officer stated that it didn't matter as his friend had already told them in interview that my son had driven the car.

He has now been bailed to appear at the police station in September. The bail form stated the charge as Possess a controlled drug of class B - cannabis / cannabis resin.

My son's friend was released after caution.

If the test comes back negative I take it that my son will face a caution, if the test comes back positive he will be charged with drug driving.

On the above what can we expect and do you have any advice.

Regards

Acaharavi
 
Apologies, I also meant to mention another couple of items.

1. My my son had worked that day until around 17:45 and I don't believe that there would have been any reasonable grounds to suspect that he was unfit to drive through drink or drugs.

2. After interview my son was taken back to his car by the arresting officer. When dropping him off she offered to follow my son out of the carpark as the road was dark by this point.

Regards

Acaharavi
 
Typically speaking yes, where an individual only has a small amount of cannabis it would normally be dealt with by way of a caution. If the blood test comes back positive for cannabis use (as it almost certainly will) then this does not automatically mean that he will be prosecuted. It is the active ingredient in cannabis (THC) that the police are testing for, if this comes back with a reading of over 2 nanograms then he will be prosecuted for driving whilst unfit through drugs. The best thing to do at this stage is to await the blood results from the police.
 
Thanks for the reply Sean,

I am aware of the THC requirement and as my son is a regular smoker believe that this will come back above the limit despite the time span between smoking the drug and being arrested due to the way THC concentrates in a regular user. We will be obtaining an independent test rather than waiting until September for the police results.

I was more interested in the procedural aspects as they appear to be a little bit of a mess, especially the fact that having obtained a blood test and allegedly being under the suspicion that he had been driving while over a prescribed limit that she then took him back to his car and allowed him to drive. I also have serious concerns over the conduction of the preliminary test handling and failure to show the results to my son prior to requesting a blood sample.

Kindest Regards

Acharavi
 
Having now been informed by the police of the potential cost of a delta 9 THC test I'm afraid that it is prohibitive and as such looks like we will have to wait for the results.

Regards

Acharavi
 
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