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Prohibited Drug Case Study

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Possession:
Under section 10 of the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act, "a person who has a prohibited drug in his or her possession is guilty of an offence." In order to establish this offence the prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt that the person had exclusive physical custody of the drugs and had knowledge of the existence and the nature of the drug. As per section 3 Schedule 1, cocaine is defined as a prohibited drug.

Due to Francis producing two satchels from his pocket containing cocaine, it can be inferred that he had exclusive control of the drugs at the time. One of these satchels was handed to Doug in order to give to Seth. From this action it can be established that both Francis and Seth had exclusive control over their separate satchels. The act of Doug placing Seth’s intended packet in his pocket and providing him with the talcum powder instead also means that he to has exclusive physical control of a prohibited drug. This is known as manual possession as described in the case of Dib. Due to these facts, it can be seen that each of the men had exclusive physical control of their drugs.

Similarly as per He Kaw Teh, it can be …show more content…

Under this section, the only defence available is to convince the jury that it was for personal use. However, based on the facts provided and the balance of probabilities it is likely that Francis will be found guilty as he was in possession of 3.5grams of cocaine and supplied both Doug and Seth. Francis was aware of the nature and the quantity of the drugs, which can be established due to the knowledge of how many grams he was giving to Seth, thus satisfying the Mens Rea requirement. Under section 4 it is not relevant how pure the cocaine was. Therefore, due to the facts provided and the information in section 29 and 4, it is likely that Francis will be found guilty of

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