Being under the influence of drugs in public - legal or not?

Iwantmoney

This question is strictly theory, as I never was or plan on being under the influence of illegal substances in public, nor i ever was in private. I have no access to anything like that.

My question is, what would the consequences be of gards spot-searching you and finding out that your pupils are extremely dilated and that you're under the influence of drugs. (Just theory.) This all goes without having anything suspicious on you, no drugs, nothing illegal. Just yourself being high, walking on the street, not disrupting peace or anything like that. Could they take you in for that? Can they do ANYTHING to you for just being high?

I was always interested in law and this question is bugging me for a long time, since I can't find an answer that would fully answer the question.

Cookie_Monster

Surely they would have to in some way test you and find traces of it, much like a breath / urine / blood test for alcohol?
How would they know you are on X drug as opposed to having some sort of mental condition etc?

Peregrinus

It's an offence under Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act, 1994 s.4 to "be present in any public place while intoxicated to such an extent as would give rise to a reasonable apprehension that he might endanger himself or any other person in his vicinity".

In regular speech "intoxicated" is mostly used to refer to alcohol, but it's defined in s. 4 to refer to "any alcoholic drink, drug, solvent or other substance or a combination of substances". It makes no difference whether the drug, substance etc is legal or illegal as regards possession or sale; that's irrelevant.

Simply having dilated pupils or sitting on a park bench and grinning stupidly at the sky or whatever wouldn't suggest any immediate danger. But if you were unsteady on your feet, wandering into the road, behaving unpredictably, etc, in a way that might suggest a real risk of accident then, yeah, the offence is being committed. All that's needed is a "reasonable apprehension" that you "might" endanger someone (including yourself).

For what it's worth, the guards are fairly skilled at gently escalating an encounter with someone who is obviously drunk or high so that he does something concrete that they can point to as justification for arresting him under this offence. So if you're high in public and they want to get you off the streets, they usually can.

Obviously, if you are driving a car, or are near a car and have the car keys, there are motoring offences they can get you on.

On edit: Cookie monster - because the offence doesn't require an illegal drug, or any particular drug, all they have to do is show that your behaviour is likely drug-influenced. The dilated pupils that Iwantmoney mentions will suggest this - mental illness or learning disability don't cause dilated pupils. And there can be other physical symptoms.

cursai

Peregrinus wrote: »

It's an offence under Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act, 1994 s.4 to "be present in any public place while intoxicated to such an extent as would give rise to a reasonable apprehension that he might endanger himself or any other person in his vicinity".

In regular speech "intoxicated" is mostly used to refer to alcohol, but it's defined in s. 4 to refer to "any alcoholic drink, drug, solvent or other substance or a combination of substances". It makes no difference whether the drug, substance etc is legal or illegal as regards possession or sale; that's irrelevant.

Simply having dilated pupils or sitting on a park bench and grinning stupidly at the sky or whatever wouldn't suggest any immediate danger. But if you were unsteady on your feet, wandering into the road, behaving unpredictably, etc, in a way that might suggest a real risk of accident then, yeah, the offence is being committed. All that's needed is a "reasonable apprehension" that you "might" endanger someone (including yourself).

For what it's worth, the guards are fairly skilled at gently escalating an encounter with someone who is obviously drunk or high so that he does something concrete that they can point to as justification for arresting him under this offence. So if you're high in public and they want to get you off the streets, they usually can.

Obviously, if you are driving a car, or are near a car and have the car keys, there are motoring offences they can get you on.

On edit: Cookie monster - because the offence doesn't require an illegal drug, or any particular drug, all they have to do is show that your behaviour is likely drug-influenced. The dilated pupils that Iwantmoney mentions will suggest this - mental illness or learning disability don't cause dilated pupils. And there can be other physical symptoms.

Wow. How much do you smoke?

Peregrinus

cursai wrote: »

Wow. How much do you smoke?

I'm not saying that loss of control is the normal or usual outcome of, ahem, a little indulgence in recreational substances. I'm saying that if you have indulged to that point - and these are the circumstances in which the guards are likely to notice you - then, yes, there is an offence which may be relevant.

Alcohol provides a useful example. You go to a pub, and drink more than would be consistent with driving home, so you walk home, or take a bus or a taxi. There's no offence there. Even if people looking at you would think "yes, he's had a drink or two", there's still no offence. But if you're staggering in the street, if you're wandering off the pavement, or if you are one who becomes truculent in drink, now there's an offence.

Simply being high in public is not an offence. Being high to a point where you create a danger, or are in danger yourself, is. It doesn't have to be a very great danger, or an immediate one. Exactly how high that is depends on what it is you're high on, and on your personal tolerance for whatever it is.

Speedwell

If you were quiet, kept to yourself, and didn't do anything to draw attention to yourself or cause concern... even small but odd things like smelling like drugs or alcohol, sitting out in the cold without a coat, not responding when people talk to you or responding inappropriately, being in a place when you shouldn't or at weird times... then there would be no reason for you to come to the attention of any gardai, I suppose, and nobody would know you were under the influence. They don't, to the best of my knowledge, make work for themselves by grabbing perfectly functional people going about their business off the street in broad daylight for no reason.

Iwantmoney

But let's say they randomly spot someone on the street to search him (they sometimes do, i've been searched a good few times myself), they look at his eyes and notice that they are extremely dilated. The person wouldn't be aggressive or anything while they are talking to him, but all that wouldn't be right would be his pupils. They would probably figure out that this person is under the influence of drugs, but even though he wouldn't be a threat to anything or anyone, could they still do something?

Speedwell

Iwantmoney wrote: »

But let's say they randomly spot someone on the street to search him (they sometimes do, i've been searched a good few times myself), they look at his eyes and notice that they are extremely dilated. The person wouldn't be aggressive or anything while they are talking to him, but all that wouldn't be right would be his pupils. They would probably figure out that this person is under the influence of drugs, but even though he wouldn't be a threat to anything or anyone, could they still do something?

They could. But it's likely they have bigger fish to fry.

Grolschevik

I've never been randomly searched, ever. And I lived in Belfast during the Troubles. If you've been stopped and searched "a good few times", you might want to analyse for yourself why that is. Car? Behaviour? Company? Etc

Peregrinus

If they wanted to arrest him, I think, what they would have to do is goad or provoke him into some behaviour that they could point to as creating a risk of danger.

Back in the day, there was a condition known among the guards as "drunk and disorderly and refusing to fight". Someone is obviously drunk in the street, and in danger of becoming incapable, but he is not behaving in a disorderly fashion (which is what the old "drunk and disorderly" offence required). If you leave him, and ten minutes later he falls down in the road and is run over, you'll feel very bad. Or, it's a sole woman and its 2 a.m. and a fairly sketchy part of town, and you are concerned that if you leave her she may be vulnerable to assault. What do you do? The answer is you engage them in conversation and provoke them, so to speak, until they do something "disorderly". For instance, you stand very close to them, and maybe tread on their toes "accidentally", until they push you in the chest to get you to back off. Then you arrest them for being drunk and disorderly, let them sleep it off in the cells, and in the morning they go home. Charges are later dropped. Problem solved.

Far be it from me to say that they could do something similar with someone who is high, but they could do something similar with someone who is high. All they need is to get you to behave in a way that suggests that you might be a danger to someone. And, really, if you are sufficiently befuddled to have come to their notice, it's probably not going to be that difficult to get you to do that.

But, of course, they have no reason to, unless the person is causing some kind of problem or annoyance, or giving rise to some kind of concern. And generally the guards don't like to make work for themselves, or generate paperwork requirements, or have to supervise people in cells who don't need to be in cells. So, as Speedwell says, they don't go out of their way to ramp up these situations to an arrestable point. If they do, nine times out of ten it's because they think you're either obnoxious or vulnerable, not because they have it in for you.