Acquit narrows a drug charge to the correct Drugs Misuse offence by reading the drug’s schedule and quantity off the particulars before asking you to pick.
A single possession charge can be any of several offences that differ on those two things, so the charge extraction review step asks you to choose between them.
Schedule
The drug’s schedule is a matter of law, so variants for the other schedule are removed: a cannabis charge is never offered a Schedule 1 option.
Quantity
The quantity is only narrowed where the particulars actually state it, in one of two forms:
- the statutory wording, like “exceeded the quantity specified in Schedule 3 … but less than the quantity specified in Schedule 4”
- a figure, like “quantity exceeded 2.0g”, which Acquit checks against that drug’s threshold in the current Drugs Misuse Regulation
Cannabis charged by plant count works the same way.
When no quantity is alleged
Where the particulars allege no quantity (the common case on a QP9), Acquit selects the base offence but leaves the higher bands on screen. That reading comes from the document’s silence rather than from anything the document says.
The note on the selected card tells you which happened, a stated quantity or silence, so you know whether to check the selection against the brief.
Drug dependency
Drug dependency is never assumed: it reduces the maximum penalty and is established at sentence rather than charged, so the non-dependent option is selected.