We represent a lot of clients who are charged with possession of drugs or trafficking in narcotics at all levels rate from minor possession charges right up to conspiracy to trafficking, you know, pounds and pounds of cocaine. And you know, every client who comes to us the first question is Will I be able to get this charge drop? What are the strengths and weeks in the case? What are you going to do? Mr. Cruz? I mean, I’m desperate mean, some clients are facing years in jail, obviously on serious charges, whereas others are facing more minor results, sentences. So what’s the strategy? What do we do as a lawyer? Well, the first thing we do, of course, when you hire us is we ordered the police reports the disclosure, we we need to get all of the evidence that police gathered any documentation, surveillance, wiretap surveillance videos, you name it, analysis of the drugs, search warrants, I mean, these packages can go on for sometimes 1000s of pages and more minor case like, you know, 100 pages or so the creditor is required to give us all that documentation, the disclosure, what you’re facing, essentially, I sit down in the Where’s night, if they’re representing otherwise representing you, and review that carefully, we have to pour through it, analyze it. Sometimes that takes many hours, even a minor case is going to take several hours to to formulate a proper legal opinion about the strengths and weaknesses of the case or their did the police make mistakes, or their weaknesses, or their charter issues or their search issues, there’s just a whole host of potential defenses to drug charges. And then, once I’ve completed that process, which can take anywhere from a day to multi days, depending on the case, I mean, I have represented people with 1000s of pages of documents on wiretaps. And that takes days and days to review. But let’s let’s talk about a minor case. I mean, I’ve probably reviewed a few, quite a few hours, then I sit down with you and start reviewing it with you provide the legal opinion are there. Are there defenses here? What What can we do? What’s the strengths and weakness case? What are the odds of you winning at trial. And I can basically give you basic odds within you know, this is a slam dunk case was noted fantastic. You know, they caught you red handed or it looks pretty good for us, we’ve got a good search issue slammed out, but it’s certainly hired 5050 or, you know what, we got some issues that could go either way, depending on the judge or jury who’s listening this case where we’ve got a chance, I think the crowds got a better chance at us or you know what we’re, it’s it’s a strong crowd case, I’m obviously hopeful of finding flaws in the case, that I can then approach the crown on to try and drop the charge. So we receive your full background. And it’s always advantageous when you have no criminal record your person in good society. But we’re going to talk about your background. And I sometimes spend an hour or two getting a life history from the client, because I want to review that with the crown that’s important, especially for a good background. And I’m going to tell you the approach that I’m going to go with the crowning and say, Look, I’m going to try and get the charges dropped because we got a pretty good chance to win. If they won’t drop them and they don’t have a great deal, you should probably just head to trial, because I think we can win. Although there’s risks, there might be a 75% chance of winning, which means there’s a 25% chance of losing but let’s see if the crowd dropped this. So I started meeting with the crowd, I got to be very careful what I say to the crown for because mistakes that the police make boil down to different issues that some of them can be fixed, frankly. So you if there’s something flaw or technical issue in the disclosure that a police officer could fix, or the crown might be able to fix. And I won’t give examples. But there’s just there’s two examples even less, I won’t disclose that with him I’m gonna stay quiet, you know, if we tell them over that, that technical issues can be gone the osric and covered off their notes, they can explain why they forgot to do that somehow in a clever way. Because right now it’s a problem and I think we can win. I might not disclose that with them. But there’s other mistakes that the police make that can’t be fixed. And I there’s no problem with me discussing that with the crowd. So you have to know as a defense lawyer I think you learned very early on in your career what to discuss and what not to discuss with the crowd. I mean, I’m sure I learned that my maybe the hard way as well. When I was a crown actually, you know, you learn a lot of these things. I was a crown for the first four years of my career and then a young defense lawyer. I hope I’ve learned a lot since then too over the last 33 years I think I have but you never repeat your same mistakes if you’ve once disclosed once. If you’ve ever in your career as a defense lawyer disclose a flaw In the case that came back to bite yet you’ll never let that happen again, believe me. So I sit down with the crowd, if it’s mistake that I can review with them, I know they can’t fix, I’m going to point it out to them. I’m going to argue hopefully, there’s no reasonable prospect of conviction. That’s the test. If there’s no reason prospecting efficient, and it’s not in the best interest of the public to proceed, the crowd should do the right thing, withdraw the charge. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the crowd goes to trial, even when they’ve got a weak case, because they just, it’s easier for them politically, sometimes to run a case, isn’t it, unfortunately. So that’s a great result if we could just get it withdrawn outright. Now, another great result is if we can get the charge diverted, meaning, you know, do some counseling, upfront counseling, charitable contributions, community service, and, you know, get it, get it ultimately, but Kron that’s a wonderful result, no criminal record. Sometimes a conditional discharge is a great result as well, depending on the case it results in no criminal record, the Crown’s often willing to give a conditional discharge, even on a half serious offense if there’s no if they think they’ve got a weaker case. So it’s all about plea bargain negotiation, a skilled lawyer is able to do this. They know what to say the crown, when to say it, when to pull back when to plead, when to go to trial, when not, you’ve got to hire the right lawyer for this. And that lawyer if they’re able to, depending on the county, in some counties, you can pick the crown that you’re going to meet with, you’ve got to know your county, you got to know your crown. In other counties, you can’t some sometimes systems where it’s randomly assigned to a federal prosecutor’s office, randomly signs. And they won’t tell you if you mean that. But I know the counties in our office that are other ways where we can actually pick the crowd, pick up the phone and talk to the one we want to meet with. So we’re often successful in doing this. And there’s just a whole host of ways of dropping this. I mean, there’s illegal searches where the search warrants invalid, they stop a person the sidewalk is not a valid search. circumstantial evidence is weak about who had possession. situations in a vehicle were five people in the vehicle and we don’t know who had possession. I mean, I could go on and on, there’s so many defenses to drug charges, I guarantee that if you hire our law firm, we’re gonna find them we’re gonna, we’re gonna point them out to you, and we’re gonna approach the crowd on the ones that can’t be fixed, to try and rest the best possible deal to avoid a criminal record. And if we got a winning case, and the crowd is not willing to play ball, we’re going to vigorously fight for you at trial and try and win your case. So that’s how to get a drug charges drop I must say not every case has flaws in it, but you’d be surprised at the number of drug charges that come across my desk and our other large desk over over many years where we go wow, that police made some serious ear errors here. They’re not fixable, and I can get the crown probably to withdraw this charge or at least get diversion and worst case scenario a conditional discharge. So that’s how to get a drug charge dropped in Ontario. 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