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Prescription Cannabis Seizures

Chris Hamilton made this Freedom of Information request to Police Service of Northern Ireland Automatic anti-spam measures are in place for this older request. Please let us know if a further response is expected or if you are having trouble responding.

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Dear Police Service of Northern Ireland,

Please treat the following as a FOI request under the relevant legislation.

Upon refusal of my last request I am refining my request as follows:

Please provide me information on the following:

How many Seizures of Prescribed cannabis has there been across all districts in the last 12 months? This request relates only to seizures of Cannabis held within a prescription container and which carries a label showing ownership of the cannabis to the patient.

In your refusal notice, you state the PSNI can not differentiate between illegal/legal cannabis. However, Legally prescribed Cannabis is stored within its Prescribed container and is labelled with a prescription label for the patient to whom it belongs. This should make it easy to distinguish illegal and legal Cannabis and therefore I would expect the PSNI can make efforts in their search for the data to which I have requested.

Yours faithfully,

Chris Hamilton

Police Service of Northern Ireland

This e-mail has been marked OFFICIAL [PUBLIC];

15th October 2024

Dear Mr. Hamilton,

FREEDOM of INFORMATION ACT 2000

I write in connection with your request for information dated 14th October
2024 which was received by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI)
on 14th October 2024.  I note you seek access to the following
information:

Prescription Cannabis Seizures

This request will be dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. A response should be sent to you within 20 working
days. The Freedom of Information team will advise you in writing if there
are any delays in responding to your request and will keep you advised of
progress.  

If your request is unclear and clarification is required the 20 day
legislative time limit dictated by the Freedom of Information Act 2000
will be stopped until we receive clarification of your request. The ICO
guidance at paragraph 40 of the link below sets out that the clock begins
anew the day after the clarification is received. It states:

“If the requester subsequently provides enough detail to enable the
authority to identify and locate the information, then the authority must
respond to the clarified request within a new 20 working day time limit
with the ‘clock’ starting the day after it receives the required
clarification.“

The link for this is:

[1]https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/gui...

In the event where the cost of complying with the request would exceed the
“appropriate level”, which is fixed at £450, as stated in the Freedom of
Information Regulations 2004, it is the policy of the PSNI to close the
request. You will however be notified of this decision and given an
opportunity to refine and resubmit the request.

If your request requires either full or partial transference to another
public authority in order to answer your request again, you will be
notified.

If you have any queries regarding your request please write to the
Corporate Information Branch via email or the address below. Please
remember to quote the reference number listed above in any future
communications with the Corporate Information Branch.

If you are dissatisfied in any way with the handling of your request, you
have the right to request a review. You should do this as soon as possible
or in any case within two months of the date of issue of this letter. In
the event that you require a review to be undertaken, you can do so by
writing to the Corporate Information Manager, Corporate Information
Branch, PSNI Headquarters, 65 Knock Road, Belfast, BT5 6LE or by emailing
[email address].

If, following an Internal Review carried out by an independent decision
maker, you remain unhappy about how your request has been handled you have
the right to apply in writing to the Information Commissioner at
‘Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF. There are a number of other platforms you can use to
contact the ICO and these can be found on the ICO’s website at the
following link: Make a complaint | ICO
([2]https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/).

In most circumstances, the Information Commissioner will not investigate a
complaint unless an internal review procedure has been carried out
however, the Commissioner has the option to investigate the matter at
their discretion.

Yours sincerely,

David
Corporate Information Branch
PSNI HQ Brooklyn

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References

Visible links
1. https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/gui...
2. https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/

Police Service of Northern Ireland

1 Attachment

This e-mail has been marked OFFICIAL [PUBLIC];

Subject: FOI-2024-03603
7th November 2024

Dear Mr. Chris Hamilton,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000

I refer to your request for information dated 14th October 2024 which was
received by the Police Service of Northern Ireland on 14th October 2024
concerning:

Prescription Cannabis Seizures

Please find attached response to your request.

Yours sincerely

ARW
Corporate Information Branch
PSNI HQ Brooklyn

DD 02890 700 164

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We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are Chris Hamilton please sign in and let everyone know.