Met Police officer ‘got high by accident by sharing cigarette’

A Metropolitan Police officer who failed a drugs test claimed he got high by accident after sharing a cigarette with a stranger. 

PC Joe Lewis tested positive for cannabis at over six times the cut off limit, a misconduct hearing held on June 12 was told. 

In his response PC Lewis claimed that the day prior to the test he had taken a puff of a stranger’s cigarette in the smoking area of a pub. 

He claims he did not know the cigarette contained cannabis until the moment he smoked some of it. 

PC Lewis claimed that as soon as it dawned upon him that the cigarette contained cannabis it made him physically sick. 

He added that since joining the police he had never smoked cannabis up until that moment. 

Assistant Commissioner Barbara Gray said: “In my view this is a highly implausible explanation for how the drugs came to be in former PC Lewis’s system. 

“Taking a puff from a cigarette being smoked by someone who is a complete stranger would be very unusual behaviour for the majority of people, and even if this were to be the case, it is likely that former PC Lewis would have been able to smell the cannabis in the cigarette if he were standing in the same smoking area. 

“He made no attempt to come forward and report what he claims happened to him and the fact that this event is said to have taken place after an intelligence-led drugs test had already been authorised makes PC Lewis’s account all the more unlikely.” 

The conclusion of the misconduct hearing was that on the balance of probabilities it is likely that PC Lewis smoked cannabis knowingly and willingly. 

PC Lewis resigned from the force in January, shortly after the failed drugs test. 

It was decided that if he was still a serving officer he would have been dismissed without notice.