FOI 10907-25 Possession and Distribution of Ketamine

Request to Northamptonshire Police

Under the Freedom of Information Act I would like to request the following information:

Statistics showing the number of people who have been arrested for possession of ketamine (class B) under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 in each of the last 5 calendar years.

Specific offences:

• Possession of a Controlled Drug – Class B (Ketamine)
• Possession of a Controlled Drug with Intent to Supply – Class B (Ketamine)
• Supply or Offer to Supply a Controlled Drug – Class B (Ketamine)
• Production or Cultivation of a Controlled Drug – Class B (Ketamine)

Response

After conducting reasonable searches, I can confirm that Northamptonshire Police holds the information requested. Our analysts have searched for all drug offences relating to the possession and/or distribution of Ketamine throughout the specified period of five years.

Please be advised that we are unable to break these figures down into individual years because of the extremely low numbers involved, as explained below.

Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section1(1)(a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held.

The second duty at Section1(1)(b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held.

When refusing to provide such information, because the information is exempt, Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Northamptonshire Police to provide the applicant with a notice which:

1. states that fact,
2. specifies the exemption in question and
3. states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption I can advise that the requested information is held; however, the information is not suitable for disclosure in the requested format.

The exemption applicable in this case is Section 40(2) Personal Information.

Section 40 is an absolute class-based exemption, which does not require evidence of the harm disclosure would cause and does not require consideration of a public interest test. That being said, where Section 40(2) is engaged, in order to make the exemption absolute there needs to be evidence that a Data Protection Principle would be breached by disclosure.

This exemption is engaged where disclosure of information relates to personal data of a third party or could lead to the identification of an individual, either from that information alone or combined with any other information from within the Police Service or public domain. In this case, due to extremely low numbers, providing the requested breakdown by year is likely to lead to the identification of an individual. Such a disclosure would breach individuals’ rights under the Data Protection Act 2018, in particular Article 5(1) of the GDPR which states that personal data shall be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject.

Accordingly, please accept this letter as a Refusal Notice under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 for the requested annual breakdown.

Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that the data has been extracted from multiple sources, developed for specific policing purposes, for which data extraction methods have not been specifically designed to directly correlate with the terminology of this request. There the data presented is subject to the inaccuracies and idiosyncrasies inherent in any large-scale recording system.

If you decide to write an article or use the enclosed data, we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.