Student Drug Defense Penalties

If you have been charged with a drug offense, you may be facing criminal penalties apart from scholastic penalties. If this is the case, it may be in your best interest to get in touch with a defense attorney who specializes in working with students. An attorney can fight tirelessly on your behalf in order to guarantee you a strong defense and a fair trial. Contact an experienced student defense attorney about Michigan student drug defense penalties.

The major consequence a person should be aware of regarding illegal drug charges on campus is that there is the possibility of a criminal charge. While each school has its own specific student code of conduct and rules that precludes drug use of any kind on campus, people should be aware that although it is only a charge with the campus, anything that goes on could be transferred into a criminal charge. It is important for a person to understand that even if the charge is contained within the campus system, anything said about the matter might be brought into a criminal court.

With any controlled substance charges, a person faces a number of Michigan student drug defense penalties such as jail time, expulsion from school, probationary periods, and treatment programs. When someone deals with a campus drug offense, they should not focus only on the smaller picture of what happened on campus. They may also need to consider what could happen as far as the legal system is concerned.

Most of the consequences are similar across the age spectrum when it comes to illegal drug use. Age does not usually play a large factor when referring to an age range between 18 and 21. When a student is in their 30s or 40s and returned to school, age may be given consideration. Unlike alcohol use which becomes legal at 21, drug use is almost never legal.

There are programs in the State of Michigan designed for people under the age of 21 and potentially under the age of 25. These programs are geared towards the idea that people may not be quite mature enough at that age to make appropriate decisions. Depending on one's age, they may have been using the substances for a more extensive time versus somebody who is just newly experimenting.

Because of the general age range being younger, schools and even the legal field consider the students as redeemable and are more inclined to rehabilitate rather than punish someone with a drug offense. However, age might be used against an older student population or somebody in and out of the system for most of their lives.

Illegal drug charges may expand into drugs that are not prescription drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines. While they are present everywhere, they are perceived as intolerable The Michigan student drug defense penalties go up for those illegal drug charges. The first response to people using illegal drugs is to begin with a treatment program if they can. An illegal drug charge might carry felony sanctions and the court system can be heavily involved.

Campuses act in loco parentis, which is a legal term for in place of the parent. Universities want to ensure that their students are protected and isolated from these types of drugs. Whenever someone is caught using drugs, especially hard drugs, the school takes an aggressive stance in pursuing criminal and academic sanctions such as expulsion.