@mushroom_john 394977 wrote:
It may mean you can’t do volunteer work at a later date.
True but its societies loss. They made the laws and have to lose good volunteers because of it – in some ways its your payback against society! In reality its often prejudice of those in management positions of voluntary organisations (particularly those dominated by social conservative members of faith groups) causing this problem rather than the application of the law itself which if correctly interpreted encourages a much greater culture of forgiveness and rehabilitation than in previous times. ironic given the supposed concept of faith groups in modern society, more so when you consider private and public sector employers are more forgiving!
Before CRB there was simply a “grapevine” (particularly in small towns and rural areas) between senior police officers and voluntary group leaders without any sort of monitoring or accountability! I appreciate many people below the age of 35 may not be aware of any of this, but there were (and still are to an extent in rural areas) ways where communities formed ranks and tried to ensure certain people “stayed in the gutter” and the trend at the time to ensure drugs cases were heard in Magistrates and reported in the Press meant that local employers soon found out. (whole families could be blacklisted, it still happens to an extent in villages round here!)
If the evidence was there, in all likelihood you’d have been arrested and charged.
Unless you mean the recent cannabis “caution” / “street penalty” (which may be falling out of favour anyway) to get to the situation where you would be getting a Simple Caution you would already have been arrested on suspicion of posession.
even with chemical party drugs, cops also often “use their discretion”, sling the drugs into the gutter, give the offender a minor bollocking and say they’ve been “cautioned”, then send them on their way!
– cautions imply a lack of evidence, you are innocent until proven guilty.
Unfortunately its well known and acccepted by the bulk of non drug using society that drugs laws the world over reverse this legal principle, even in countries known for a relatively liberal rule of law…
Even European Human Rights legislation has get outs allowing stronger action against “drug addicts” than normal “healthy” citizens. At present the concept of “guilt”, however flawed, lies within the very concept of taking drugs without the advice of a medical professional, not the scientific evidence of what the drugs actually are. Until (or if) this consensus changes there are still risks in “bucking the system”. in the “real world” this sort of “activism” is seen as no different from a known burglar saying “it wasn’t me” because the CSI couldn’t get enough decent quality fingerprints at the crime scene.
in the future if people keep trying to buck the system (unless recreational drug users can improve their image) its more likely things go backwards, people being sent to the Magistrates for piddling small amounts, their names in the paper and still being barred from doing voluntary work etc, like what I remember happening to friends in the 1980s…
I remember in the 1990s the drug using community had a much more optimistic outlook but Noughties binge culture has put paid to any chance of any more leniency in the medium term.
BTW what I do disagree with is cops offering cautions for incidents of violent behaviour. IMO everyone who feels they have the right to use force against their fellow citizen should have to explain their actions in a Court of law under the scrutiny of the media and the local community!
