ULSAN — A court has handed a prison term to a man in his 20s who used drugs again just eight minutes after being released following a negative result on a preliminary drug test.
The Ulsan District Court's Criminal Division 12, presided over by Senior Judge Lee Young-je, said on the 22nd that it sentenced the man, identified as A, to three years in prison and ordered him to complete a 40-hour drug addiction rehabilitation program. He had been indicted on charges including violating the Act on the Control of Narcotics.
The case began on the evening of Feb. 21 this year, when a series of 112 emergency calls reported that a car was blocking a road in central Ulsan. Officers who responded to the scene tested the driver for alcohol but detected none.
Suspecting drug use, police brought A voluntarily to a nearby police station and conducted a preliminary urine test. When the result came back negative, officers sent him home.
The absurd part came immediately afterward. Eight minutes after A left the station, calls flooded in again about a vehicle stopped and blocking the same road. The driver the officers found when they rushed back to the scene was A, the man they had just released.
A was sitting blankly in the driver's seat with an unfocused gaze, ignoring officers who knocked on the window and ordered him to get out. Officers forced the car door open and took him into custody.
A search turned up an electronic cigarette device loaded with synthetic cannabis and liquid containers from inside A's clothing, and several more cannabis liquid cartridges were found in the car. Under questioning, A admitted that he had "inhaled synthetic cannabis in the car while driving out of the police station parking lot." Having let his guard down after the negative preliminary test, he had turned to drugs the moment he walked out of the station — and eight minutes later, the effects kicked in and brought traffic to a halt.
"The defendant committed the offense again without restraint, even though he was under a suspended sentence and probation for a similar crime in the past," the court said in explaining the sentence. "He also maintained unconvincing excuses throughout the investigation and trial in an attempt to evade responsibility, making severe punishment unavoidable."
