Possession of Drugs in UK Law

But if you have got it in your custody and you put it in some safe place, and then forget you have got it, and discover a year or two later, when you happen to look in that particular receptacle that it is still there, it seems to this Court idle to suggest that during those two years it has not been in your possession. If it has not been in your possession, in whose possession has it been?

After all, it is sometimes simply a matter of which drafting technique is adopted: a true constituent element can be removed from the definition of the crime and cast as a defensive issue whereas any definition of an offence can be reformulated so as to include all possible defences within it. It is necessary to concentrate not on technicalities and niceties of language but rather on matters of substance.

If, on the other hand, the jury were to come to the conclusion that the presence of the money indicated not merely past dealing, but an ongoing dealing in drugs, then finding the money, together with the drugs in question, would be a matter which the jury could take into account in considering whether the necessary intent had been proved.

In our judgment evidence of possession of cash will often lack any probative value. Nevertheless in our judgment the relevance of any particular piece of evidence should be decided on a case by case basis. Accordingly although evidence of cash and lifestyle may only rarely be relevant where the charge is simple possession, we are unable to accept that as a matter of law such evidence must, automatically, be excluded as irrelevant.

That, in our judgment, establishes the necessary possession. They must also of course prove that the box in fact contained the drug alleged, in this case cannabis resin. If any of those matters are unproved, there is no case to go to the jury.

The word "supply," in its ordinary natural meaning, conveys the idea of furnishing or providing to another something which is wanted or required in order to meet the wants or requirements of that other. It connotes more than the mere transfer of physical control of some chattel or object from one person to another. No one would ordinarily say that to hand over something to a mere custodier was to supply him with it.