The UK Medical Cannabis Patient Who Was Acquitted After Two Years of Hell

Sal Aziz is a legally prescribed medical cannabis patient in the United Kingdom. In March 2024, he was pulled over while driving and immediately showed police his prescription. Despite this, he was arrested and charged with drug-impaired driving because his THC levels exceeded the legal limit — a limit designed for recreational users, not patients maintaining a therapeutic dose.

In October 2025, a magistrates' court convicted him. The prosecution leaned on the fact that his medicine was past its printed expiry date. Aziz lost his job as an NHS driver. He spent two years fighting a conviction for using his legally prescribed medication.

The Crown Court Acquittal

In February 2026, Winchester Crown Court fully acquitted him. The judge ruled that the statutory medical defence applied. Aziz had been right all along. The law was on his side. He had simply needed two years and enormous personal cost to prove it.

His case is not an isolated incident. Throughout 2025, legal advocates across the UK highlighted systemic problems with how medical cannabis patients are treated under driving law. The legal limit for THC was not set with patients in mind. It reflects the level expected in a recreational user who has recently consumed cannabis, not the trace levels that can persist in a regular medical patient's blood for days or weeks after their last dose.

A System That Punishes Patients

Pennsylvania in the United States has a similar problem. Over 440,000 registered medical cannabis patients face potential DUI charges based solely on the presence of THC metabolites in their blood — metabolites that can remain detectable for weeks, long after any impairment has passed. Bills introduced in 2025 to require proof of actual impairment, rather than mere presence of metabolites, have stalled in the legislature.

In Delaware, a 2025 court ruling at least established that the smell of cannabis is no longer sufficient probable cause to search a vehicle belonging to a registered medical patient. Small progress. Cold comfort for patients still being arrested for being medicated.

No one should have to spend two years in legal limbo to prove they had the right to their own medicine. Sal Aziz's acquittal was justice — but it should never have taken that long.

Sources: Cannabis Health News, Marijuana Moment, McAndrews Law Firm, EMS1.