Dale City DUI Drug Lawyer

A DUI drug charge is taken incredibly seriously in Dale City. As with a standard DUI, a drug DUI charge shares many of the same penalties that have the potential to severely impact an individual’s life in both the short and long-term.

To best defend yourself against such a charge, it is important that you contact a seasoned Dale City DUI drug lawyer as soon as possible. A knowledgeable DUI attorney will best be able to help minimize or dismiss any penalties associated with your particular charge.

Charging a Drug DUI

Somebody can be charged with a DUID in Dale City for a drug-related offense. Drug DUIs could occur when there is any type of drugs in a person’s system. This could be either something that a person has a prescription for or an illicit drug.

Many legal elements depend on what the facts of that person’s case are, but an individual can be charged with a DUID even if they have a prescription for the drug in question. Over-the-counter medication can also be the basis for a DUI charge.

Potential Penalties

The penalties are not any different for a drug-related DUI. The consequences involved are going to be the same, although prosecutors will probably treat it a little differently. This will depend on the severity of the person’s case. In addition, there are no mandatory minimum sentences for non-alcohol related blood results unless it is a second or subsequent offense. A Dale City DUI drug attorney can assist an individual in lessening any penalties they are up against.

Voluntary vs. Involuntary Intoxication

Involuntary intoxication can be a defense in both DUI charges and DUI drug charges. If a person did not know that a specific drug would impair them, it is not still voluntary intoxication. This will depend on the facts of a person’s case. If somebody administered a drug without knowing what the actual effects could be, and they took the drugs voluntarily, that could be a problem when trying to do a defense to that specific charge.

Once a person admits that they self-medicated, or that they gave the intoxicant to themselves, that makes that person liable for anything that happened after that, whether or not that person knew the nature of the drug.

If that person thought that they were not taking a drug or were somehow drugged involuntarily, that is different than if someone took a drug and just did not know what happened. There could be a situation where someone thought they were not putting any kind of intoxicant into their body whatsoever. An experienced DUI drug lawyer in Dale City can help an individual to determine the exact circumstances of their charge.

Testing for Drugs

Law enforcement will usually test for drugs by drawing blood. They will administer this test at a hospital. People both can and should refuse these tests. The only time that law enforcement has the authority to enforce a blood test is if they have a search warrant to draw and analyze the blood sample.

Law enforcement can prove impairment based on the behavior of the individual, physical observations of the individual’s manner of speech, eyes, or smell, and the fact that the person’s driving behavior was inappropriate, for example, if they were weaving or displaying erratic driving behavior. There are many ways that law enforcement could prove impairment without a blood alcohol level or drug presence from information in an individual’s blood.

Importance of an Attorney

It is important to contact an experienced Dale City DUI drug lawyer when facing charges, because these charges are very serious. They carry the same penalties as a regular DUI. However, if someone is charged with a DUI for drug possession, it can also carry a lot of social stigma beyond what a DUI carries. As a result, an individual could face employment issues, time in jail, or other penalties imposed by the court.

It is too serious for a person to try to fight on their own and too serious to have an inexperienced attorney representing them. It is important that the Dale City DUI drug lawyer is somebody who has done this before, knows what to look for, knows how to find loopholes in a person’s case, and will represent them.