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Section 256D: Drug testing requirements

Criminal Justice Act 2003 · 2003 c. 44View on legislation.gov.uk

Part 12: Sentencing — Chapter 6: Release, licences, supervision and recall

"Drug testing requirement", in relation to an offender subject to supervision under this Chapter, means a requirement that, when instructed to do so by the supervisor, the offender provide a sample mentioned in the instruction for the purpose of ascertaining whether the offender has a specified Class A drug or a specified Class B drug in his or her body.

A drug testing requirement may be imposed on an offender subject to supervision under this Chapter only if—

the Secretary of State is satisfied of the matters in subsection (3), and
the requirement is being imposed for the purpose of determining whether the offender is complying with any other supervision requirement.

Those matters are—

that the misuse by the offender of a specified class A drug or a specified class B drug caused or contributed to an offence of which the offender has been convicted or is likely to cause or contribute to the commission of further offences by the offender, and
that the offender is dependent on, or has a propensity to misuse, a specified class A drug or a specified class B drug.

An instruction given for the purpose of a drug testing requirement must be given in accordance with guidance given from time to time by the Secretary of State.

The Secretary of State may make rules regulating the provision of samples in accordance with such an instruction.

In this section, "specified Class A drug" and "specified Class B drug" have the same meaning as in Part 3 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000.

About this text

This legislation text comes from legislation.gov.uk. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. These source and reuse terms cover the legislation text, not Remedy's commentary.

Reuse reviewed 21 August 2026 under Open Government Licence v3.0.