Background

In October 2019, Section 5A of the Road Traffic Act 1988 came into force in Scotland. This legislation set out a specific offence of driving with a specified controlled drug above a prescribed limit. In addition, Section 4 of the Road Traffic Act sets out an offence of driving while impaired or unfit to drive. Section 4 offences are significantly more difficult to prove in court for a range of reasons including the subjectivity of the roadside field impairment test. Police Scotland carry out roadside testing which can indicate the presence of certain drugs, if this is positive, blood samples or urine samples (in Section 4 cases) are taken and then passed to Forensic Services for evidential analysis.

Within legislation a statutory time limit is set out that requires any proceedings taken by COPFS to be started within six months of the incident date. During COVID additional legislation allowed for the increase of the statutory time limit to 12 months.

The statutory time limit extension has been reviewed annually since the pandemic by the Scottish Parliament to consider the appropriateness of continued extension; this was last undertaken in November 2023 where a further 12-month extension to the statutory time limit was agreed.

Forensic Services are working on an assumption that this extension will not be approved further in relation to Section 5A and Section 4 cases and as such any incidents recorded from 1st June 2024 will have a 6-month statutory time limit applied.

Forensic Services are accredited to the international standard ISO17025 for all analysis undertaken on Section 5A and Section 4 drug driving casework. This provides assurance that the toxicology results reported by Forensic Services in these drug driving cases meet required internationally recognised quality standards.

The number of drug-driving cases is reported to the Scottish Police Authority Policing Performance Committee as part of the Police Scotland quarterly performance report.