Un sore throat with disastrous consequences. A 19-year-old man from Haute-Saône lost his driving license and his job in April, when he originally just had a sore throat. One evening, then very irritated there, his mother gave him cough syrup, says The Republican East. And it was this syrup that started it all: it was Dimetane, an opiate cough suppressant. The next morning, the young man, whose name is Björk, took more syrup and took the wheel to join a friend in Dijon. He was intercepted by the gendarmes, who therefore tested positive for opiates, thus withdrawing his license.
Björk was first subjected to a saliva test, which came back positive. For the sake of verification, as the young man claimed not to have smoked or consumed anything, the gendarmes made a second one, also positive. A third was then sent to the laboratory. Same result.
The 19-year-old truck driver didn’t just lose his license in the story. He also lost his job. Since that evening in April, Björk and her mother have been doing everything to have the failure of these saliva tests, which the police carry out with motorists, recognized. “We asked our attending physician for a counter-test, blood and urine analysis,” explained the mother of the family to The Republican East. These new analyzes came back negative.
Gérald Darmanin informed of the file
“My son, I vouch for it, is not a user of heroin or other substances. But with the positive saliva tests, everything clicks into place. And so, for having taken two doses of cough syrup, you lose your license, your job, and you find yourself under the blow of a conviction, ”she continued.
Dimetame, only available on prescription, is indeed a drug containing opiates. Björk’s mother had had a prescription for her recently. She simply wanted to help him by giving him this syrup.
After discovering other similar testimonies on the drug-info-service.fr site, this pushed them not to let go. They challenged the offense in court and even sent the file to the prefect of Haute-Saône and to the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin. But the procedure promises to be long and complicated. In the meantime, Björk remains out of work.