Ask Officer Michelle – Question #513
Posted by mrsking
My mentally ill adult son who lives with me, was out walking, got picked up, taken to the police station, and tested for illegal drugs. He was not taken to jail. Test results were 100-percent negative for any illegal drugs, and positive for a psychiatric medication. I provided proof to the police that my son’s psychiatric medication was a legitimate prescription.
However, police now believe my son is an illegal drug user because their computers say he was arrested for drugs. What can be done to clear this up?
Thank you.
Dear mrsking,
I feel for you that you are dealing with a son who has a mental illness. I work around people with mental illness on a daily basis and I know that it can’t be easy for you.
I’m not sure what happened with your son. The police don’t test people for illegal drug use unless it is to take blood and/or urine for a DUI or in conjunction with a blood test involving a felony arrest. The samples are sent away to a lab and take time for the results to arrive.
What may have happened is that your son had a substance on him that officers thought may be illegal drugs. The drugs can be preliminarily tested to see if they test positive for a drug. If your son didn’t have his medication in a prescription bottle or have the prescription with him, the officers may have thought he was in possession of the drug illegally.
If your son had been arrested for drugs in the past, he may be flagged by the Department of Justice (DOJ) as a registered drug offender. The only agency who could remove that would be the DOJ. You can look at this website for more information http://oag.ca.gov/contact or call (916) 322-3360.
Until the flag is removed, each time your son is run in the system by law enforcement, it will pop up with the registered drug offender flag. If your son is on probation or parole, he can be stopped at any time by law enforcement and searched. He could have agreed to this stipulation in order to get out of jail.
Thank you for your post.
Officer Michelle
