Interior orders the police not to denounce the consumption or possession of drugs within parked cars | Spain

The Ministry of Interior has ordered the agents of the National Police and the Civil Guard that the consumption or possession of drugs, provided that they are not to traffic, within the private cars parked. The instruction, signed on Tuesday by the Secretary of State for Security, Rafael Pérez Ruiz, explains, citing jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, that vehicles are “privacy spaces” and concludes that they cannot be applied the article of the Citizen Security Law that considers as serious sanction this type of behavior on public roads, public establishments or collective transport. The majority police unions, SUP and Jupol, have strongly criticized the decision, which have branded « enormous irresponsibility » and « aberration », because they consider that it will weaken the police action, normalize drug use and endorse lives on the road. Both have demanded that it be modified or removed urgently.

Until now, if a citizen security agent found a person consuming drugs (such as joints or cocaine) inside a car decided if he denounced him by a serious infraction applying article 36.16 of the Law on the Protection of Citizen Security, approved in 2015 by the PP and known as Gag law. This section considers serious sanction « the illicit consumption or possession of toxic drugs, narcotics or psychotropic substances, although they were not intended for traffic, in places, roads, public establishments or collective transport, as well as the abandonment of instruments or other effects used for it in the aforementioned places. »

The police intervened the narcotic substance, which was weighed and analyzed, on the one hand, and on the other, he raised a proposal for sanction, which is referred to the Government Delegation, which is the one who decides if a fine is imposed on that person, which are usually 600 euros.

In the last police instruction, signed on May 6, he clarifies that section 36.16 « only mentions collective transports » and adds that the Supreme Court has already explained in Judgment 1317/1999 that vehicles are objects « that by their own nature are closely related to the concept of intimacy and privacy of their holders. » The order specifies that it should not be understood that vehicles have the same inviolability characteristics as the domicile, and that a court order is not necessary for registration, but it is a “private space, protected by a certain degree of intimacy”.

Message of impunity

In the SUD union they say they have received numerous calls from agents to notify the consequences of this new instruction. « It is a real nonsense that facilitates consumption before driving and also launches a message of impunity to those who act outside the law, » said his spokeswoman, Nadia Pajarón. « According to this rule, anyone can consume narcotic substances within a parked vehicle and, then resume the march under its effects, being out of reach of police action until it is too late, » added the union. « As dozens of companions from all over the country have transmitted to us: ‘After smoking two joints and getting four stripes, you can go home quietly. And if you kill someone, they ask for explanations to interior, » they add.

The instruction of the Secretary of State for Security, considers « a different issue » to the parked vehicle when it is « in transit », and specifies that « it could be subsumible conduct in the Criminal Code », as a crime against public health or against road safety. That is, agents cannot report with the parked vehicle, but if it is circulating.

« We are really worried. (…) It generates a lot of legal insecurity for the police when this same situation occurs with the moving vehicle. It is an absolute permissiveness and we believe that it is an authentic aberration, » said Laura García, Jupol spokesman. This union frames the interior decision in a « worrying trend » of the government « to relax the regulations on citizen security. » « The Executive is promoting legislative changes that soften the sanctions, limit the intervention capacity of the State Security Forces and Bodies and end up normalizing or tolerating behaviors that should be subject to firm surveillance, » they point out.

Both unions coincide that the use of immediate risk drugs cannot be separated, even if the instruction distinguishes between consumption in detained vehicles and in transit, and that the police experience demonstrates that many of these consumptions end with situations of fearful driving, accidents or aggressions.

The reform of Gag law, which has recently turned a decade, It has been traveling for months for Congress. He already suffered others Failed attempts in 2019 and 2023.