1/3 (split into three parts due to length, part 2&3 in comments)
Image links are included here:
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My blood test came back with a reading of 5.6µg/litre
This is quite long so scroll to the end for a very brief TL;dr
In the early hours of 20 January I woke up and found I couldn’t sleep, and instead of choosing to take my medication and potentially feel a bit too energy-less come the morning proper, I decided to go try calm my mind by sitting down the local promenade and listening to an audiobook in the car. It was just after 3am when i left my house.
When I drove to the bottom of my street, a police car drove by towards the town centre direction, I pulled out behind it and followed it towards a set of traffic lights that have a left away from town and right towards town lanes. I pulled into the left, the police car was on the right.
The lights changed at the same time and we parted ways, I choose to drive around the local streets via my mothers house incase she was awake as she sometimes is at that time, she wasn’t so I carried on and arrived at the far end of the town promenade road, and as I came up to the first layby along it in my left I notice that the same police car from about 3/4 minutes before is parked up there facing the same direction I’m heading.
So I pull up into the next lay-by about 300yards ahead of it.
Audiobook on. Chair back. Pillow out. Blanket over me and feet up. Cosy. Sorted. Already relaxing.
The police car pulls off from behind me and does a very very slow drive past me and still slowly off half way down the prom road and then off up a turning and out of sight.
4 or 5 minutes go by and the police car comes back down the same road it went up, straight to me and parks right in front of me.
It’s one officer, a lady one who doesn’t identify herself. But I’m relaxed, I’m chilled. I’m not stoned. I haven’t medicated since the morning before.
I have my prescription copy in the car and pics of my pots on my phone. Im good with this encounter I reckon.
“Hi there, how’s things could I just have a word please”
Me- “yeah sure, what’s up?” all smiley and ok about things
Her-“could you step over to my car for a moment do we could have a chat”
Sure I say and over I go with her. She says to me “you e been done for drug driving before haven’t you”
I actually haven’t, so I laugh at her in a wtf are you on about way and say “no, what the hell”, she stumbles for a second and then says to me:
“Well you’re known in the supply of drugs, cannabis so I’m going to search you ok”
Again I’m “eh what are you on about” and pretty concerned at this point wtf she’s on about. I’ve never done anything remotely like that.
So she searches me and finds nothing, as she’s doing this a police van turns up with a male and a female officer.
They don’t come over to me or identify themselves to me, by they then go to search my car, whist they do this the original officer tells me she’s going to drugwipe me, so I inform her of my prescription that I have it with me and I can show it etc, she ignores me and then insists on the test so we do it and just as I tell I her I would due to my medication I indeed fail it, we’re in the car at this point as the test needs to be set down to process, it shows positive for cannabis and she the arrests me.
We stand outside the police car for a moment and she talks to the other two who inform her they’ve found nothing in my car.
I try to chat with them about my prescription and she just insists “this is something different” we did that three times before I gave up in futility and not wanting to trigger any reason to get “forceful” with me, and so far in my demeanour and tone I’ve been reasonable and compliant enough to not warrant any handling me or handcuffing me.
So, I’m placed int he back of the van. And the two officers unknown to me are charged with taking me to the nearest police station to be processed, 35 miles away. The arresting officer lovingly reassured me that I’ll only be there na hour and I’ll be home again! Wooo! She’s just about to finish her shift so she’s off (remember this point)
The doors are shut and off we go, and go and go and go and go beyond where we’re should be going. In fact a whole fucking hour and a half further.
It turns out due to time of night there’s no nurse to process my blood test at the local station so they’re taking me to the next newest one… near on a two hour van drive away.
But they don’t tell me this, not until we actually arrive there and they let me out of the van.
I remain nice, they remain nice (although they’re shit at their jobs)
We go in, the two officers suddenly reveal themselves to be green as hell at the job, and don’t know quite what I’ve been arrested for properly or where or by who so there’s a bunch of fucking about on radios, me correcting them about locations, the desk sergeant saying “haha well see about that when it comes to it” about my prescription as he marks it down on the custody admittance form thing.
I’m not out in a cell, I’m treated quite nicely to be honest. Nobody has been a pig besides the original officer who arrested me really.
We go to fill in the mg/dd form and I raise my medical defence there so it’s now something that’s “essential to thoroughly investigate before making a decision to charge/prosecute” as it’s so worded on that rather legal document.
We then have a chat whilst we wait for the nurse, all about medical cannabis. How I came to be prescribed it, what for, how it helps me and others and so on. The two officers really took a genuine interest.
So the nurse comes in to do the blood test, in her form filling she asks me about medication. I again raise I’m prescribed medical cannabis.
She takes the blood, does the process for all that with me and blah blah.
I get my picture taken.
We chat to the sergeant who gives me my phone and keys back and off we go back in the van for a ride right back to my car where on getting out of the van I chat quickly with the male officer about which law to google and which subsection for the medical defence, I then unlock my car and the two officers watch me get in it and watch me drive off….
That’s just the start of it all really…
1/2
[PART 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukmedicalcannabis/comments/14hsqmv/charged_with_drug_driving_charges_dropped_my/jpcfn1s/)
[PART 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukmedicalcannabis/comments/14hsqmv/charged_with_drug_driving_charges_dropped_my/jpcfnn4/)
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17 comments
MedicalMe
- 3y
Rep: 3967 Lvl: Gold
3/3
So anyway… I’ve then gathered all my evidence together and sent it off to the cps.
Two weeks later to the day, it’s my birthday, I’m having a lovely chilled and laid back day of it. Enjoying it, and I do t normally enjoy them very much.
Just after lunch my phone rings, I answer and I get a VERY friendly “oh hiya is that ****** …..?”
“Erm yes, who’s this?” I answer
Super jovial again “oh hiya it’s pc natalie here from the local police station, I’d been taking to a traffic officer friend and well I was wondering about your prescription. Do you have one?”
Me “well yeah of course”
Her “oh ok could I possibly be able to have a look at it please? Could you bring it in to the station maybe?”
Me-“erm hang on… pc natalie who exactly?”
Her (tone changes from friendly) “oh it’s pc ******, so do you have that prescription?”
Me -“hang on a moment, I really don’t think this is appropriate at all. I’ve already been in court for this”
“I know” she replies
“Well that was two weeks ago now, so it’s a bit late to be asking me for my prescription isn’t it and besides you’ve meant to have given me an interview too and why not?
What you’ve put me through is disgusting and has had a detrimental effect on my health too.
You really shouldn’t be calling me at all.
The cps have everything so you’ve no need to be calling me”
Her, rather aggressively now “so you’re refusing to give me the prescription?”
Me “no, I’m telling you the cps already have it ok”
Her “oh ok thanks bye” and hangs up the phone.
I genuinely suspect she’d realised at this point she’d messed up, the cps had likely given her some earache maybe over the lack of info and heads up about the prescription. That’s my suspicion anyway.
So I feel obliged to inform the complaints investigating officer about this phone call, and as much as they try to be diplomatic about it they don’t seem to be able to see any reason for that call either and as much as it wasn’t said it was rather implied she really should not have called me whatsoever.
So four weeks go by, the case management hearing comes up. Get to court with my best mate, 2pm. Everyone goes in and everyone comes out. Court closes at 5pm, it’s now 4:30pm, we are proper bored too and bums are numb from waiting about.
I get asked by the duty solicitor (who I’m not entitled to or seeing) what I’m there for, so I tell him. He nips in and lets the court know and it seems I’d been forgotten about.
Anyway, he comes out again and asks do I need him , I say well no but we could have a quick chat in case he’s any advice as I’m not 100% how a case management hearing works, he tells me what I need to know and it turns out he had no clue about the rescheduling of cannabis as a medicine, no clue about the statutory defence for it either. And this is the thing above about why I’m glad I didn’t go with the duty solicitor, they don’t have a clue or encounter it at all enough or at all to offer genuine prescribed patients the correct advice.
This guy, and i suspect a shed load of other solicitors would have advised me to plead guilty. And that’s not the correct thing to do when you’re legally prescribed and facing a section 5a charge only.
As such I ended up informing him some, he came into the court room to watch out of his own interest.
There was a district judge, the cps guy and two ushers as well.
The judge was lovely, I think he appreciated I went in suited and booted too. Everyone else that day was in builders workwear or chav gear.
Anyway, the cps said that they’d been in touch with the police to review the evidence I’d submitted to them and wanted to adjourn.
I was asked if I objected to this and I decided to try my luck and say that I’d been through enough with this process as it is and it’s taken it’s toll on me, the trial date was originally set for two weeks ahead so I’d be hopeful that that date would be the end of the matter one way or the other. The judge agreed and the original trial date was set and stuck too.
On leaving the court, my car was irked opposite and I was changing my shoes into sneakers on the pavement as the dirty solicitor walked past on his way home too, he stopped for a moment and suggested to me that given what he’d just seen and heard in there he reckons the cps had likely written to the police telling them to bin it all off.
He then also complimented me and told me that I stand on my own two feet rather well in there and gave me a supportive kind of smile before he went off.
Today I received the letter in the pictures citing “not enough evidence”
Now again I need to say, during this whole process Guy from seed our future has been on hand when I’ve needed his reassurance and guidance. The man has been amazing, the support he gives to total strangers because of his personal morals and ethics, and his believes around medicinal cannabis too is something to be celebrated and held in high regard. Without him and his support, knowledge and passion I would have been lost.
I certainly wouldn’t have had the confidence to stand up for myself in court
TL;dr:
Got arrested for drug driving, police completely ignored my prescription still drugwipe me and processed me. Desptie raising my statutory defence they continued to ignore my patient status and even intentional neglected to interview me or investigate my claim of defence.
The police, not cps, charged me and sent me to court.
I’ve been through the court process since mid May.
The cps are arseholes who wanted to make it even more difficult for me despite all evidence of prescription and clinic supporting letters being handed to them and the court.
Adding in the consultant witness statement was the one bit of evidence they panicked over and have thrown it out of court over.
From the very start the police didn’t do their job properly. Made up BS reasons for stopping me, and then didn’t do the drugwipe properly, and in turn every other aspect of the process has it seems to have been intentionally messed up to attempt to criminalise me on purpose.
Today they dropped the case.
Two things;
DO NOT plead guilty to the charges if you’re finding you end up in the same situation. Even if the solicitor you have says plead guilty, DONT. Unless it’s a section 4 impairment charge then go NOT GUILTY and fight it.
SECONDLY, donate and support [Seed our Future](https://www.seedourfuture.co.uk/about/), it’s just one guy (Guy) and he’s supporting pretty much every patient that’s getting in this awful mess. The org is amazing, have completely helped me through this situation in so many ways.
I’ll be sending him donations going forwards whenever I have the spare quid or 20 too, given you’re a patient too it’d be nice to see us supporting those who’re there for us when we really need them too
56
Feala
- 3y
Rep: 3960 Lvl: Gold
2/3
So, I knew at this point things were serious and if I couldn’t get my ducks in a row I would be facing losing my license. I rely on it. I’m disabled, and literally do rely on it.
I get in touch with my clinic, cantourage, the next morning after a few hours crappy sleep.
They immediately reassure me they’ll do everything they can to support me, and also direct me towards Seed Our Future.
I got in touch with the latter, and an amazing man called Guy got in touch, we spoke on the phone and he was very very reassuring and knowledgable too.
We Initially put together a complaint about the behaviour and attitude of the arresting officer, her refusal to even look at or consider my prescription too and we provided evidence of my prescription and images of the pots and a supporting letter from the clinic too along with the complaint.
The complaint was assigned as a local investigation, that’s ongoing currently and I will update about that fully and properly in another post at another time once it’s all over and resolved.
What’s been made clear to me by both the police and all literature I’ve been able to find. Government published and otherwise. Is that I should have been offered an interview and an opportunity to present my prescription to the police so they can ascertain its legitimacy and then proving such, just let things go.
The arresting officer then decided to issue a charge against me, fully aware of the complaint against her. Fully aware of my prescription. Fully aware she should have investigated it, as the complainants officer had told me auite clearly she’d advised the officer to do just that, and that was two full months prior to me being charged, without any interview or prescription being asked for.
The cps didn’t charge me, or issue court proceedings against me. The arresting officer did.
It even states clearly on my summons for my plea hearing that my likely plea will be a not guilty plea.
I got to court for my plea hearing all prepared and coached well by guy from seed our future.
I went in with no solicitor (glad I didn’t, more on why in a bit) and stood up for myself.
The cps prosecutor was absolutely physically shaking with rage when she had it sprung on her I had a prescription. The police had charged me and sent me to court as any normal drug driver without giving them the full picture. What’s a bit crap is the cps lady decided to try focus her annoyance at this at me initially, somehow I found it in me to argue and actually found myself pushing back and not being reigned in by the court either.
Although I had a full proper image of the original prescription (not the pharmacy one we get a copy of) and images of the pots, clinic letter too, the cos in her annoyed state and flustered demanded a witness statement from my consultant to confirm my patient status and prescription.
Court was adjourned for 6 weeks and an interim case management hearing made too for four weeks in, two weeks before trial date.
Thankfully the clinic got onto this stuff immediately and have been absolutely amazing, and I mean so amazing I literally cry thinking about how supportive and wonderful they’ve been. It’s truly touched me how I’ve been treated, and when I’ve really needed them they’ve not only come through for me but they’ve come through in every way they could and beyond.
33
Spaceman7
- 3y
Rep: 3246 Lvl: Gold
Glad you got the right outcome eventually!
You’ve probably had enough of preparing and reading documents but maybe once the dust settles you could put the detail of this post in a letter to your Police and Crime Commissioner (and MP for good measure).
I’m sure they’d be interested to know how their officers are using finite resources, court time and taxypayer money to deal with something that could have been sorted in <10 minutes at the scene.
10
Mashpal
- 3y
Rep: 4361 Lvl: Gold
That's an appalling abuse of power. I hope she loses her job.
9
Deano
- 3y
Rep: 3963 Lvl: Gold
Doing God’s work pal!
7
Dinamus
- 3y
Rep: 3825 Lvl: Gold
This is horrific and a scary reminder that theres some officers out there that absolutely should not be allowed to be in the force. Just glad that there’s at least some competent people in the justice system that meant the case has been thrown out but I really hope you pursue compensation because i know i’d be absolutely foaming at the mouth if I was treated as horrifically and unfairly as this. Really sorry you had to go through this.
7
FreshRoll
- 3y
Rep: 4398 Lvl: Gold
Glad it all worked out for you. Police are a joke
6
Shazz
- 3y
Rep: 3795 Lvl: Gold
What we actually need is this going in the media, one which should inform the masses on the change in 2018 and secondly to embarrasses the police in knowing they don’t even know the law themselves so how are they fit to be serving the public? Maybe that kind of attention may make officers think twice when we produce legal documentation.
6
skyred
- 3y
Rep: 5054 Lvl: Gold
That’s for your documentation of this incident. Great outcome for all, especially you ☮️
6
AnnaSak
- 3y
Rep: 4171 Lvl: Gold
Well happy for you my friend, thanks for sharing, keep up the fight ❤️🤝💚💭💭💭
4
Mupps
- 3y
Rep: 3786 Lvl: Gold
Thanks for sharing and I'm glad you beat it, awesome news.
That looks like my neck of the woods too.
4
Ellisahen
- 3y
Rep: 5783 Lvl: Gold
Thanks for sharing. I'm sorry you had to go through this but really glad it's been dropped.
The apparent ignorance of the police and law professionals around MC is astounding!
4
Runt
- 3y
Rep: 5031 Lvl: Gold
I would refuse a swipe and blood test if you have a prescription that is enough evidence of anything else self-incriminating, but well done and sorry to hear they were such cunts!
3
Matthewdem
- 2y
Rep: 4427 Lvl: Gold
Interesting
1
Soniap
- 3y
Rep: 4122 Lvl: Gold
How long would you say it was from when you last took your medication to when you got blood tested? Hours, days?
1
Spaceman7
- 3y
Rep: 3246 Lvl: Gold
Sorry this happened to you.
Not legal advice but I want people to know I personally will be refusing the test at the roadside for cannabis, proving beyond doubt I have a prescription and they can arrest me there and then if they wish and ill sue them.
1
AlanVem
- 3y
Rep: 3825 Lvl: Gold
Not all cops are arse holes, one of my good friends dad was in the police for over 40 years and is very pro legalisation and all for MC and this had impacted his career a couple time when he was a little to out spoken about it.
Smoked many a joint infront of him without a care and was told a few stories of the shock people's faces when he told them to shhh and just go home, also none of our dealers ever got busted... lol, if you was drink driving or off assaulting people obviously he'd do what he needed but weed he'd just ignore it with a smirk on his face.
Lovely bloke he's one of the nicest, most genuine and helpful people I've ever met and actually joined the police to make a difference in people's lives he came from abit of a rough family so wasn't out to just pick people up for bullshit. Really a shame there ain't more like him but there ain't much room for good cops just figures and internal politics.
The main problem with the police today are those in charge have no real world experience and was fast tracked into possessions of power.
-1