North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire police have arrested a man for carrying £100,000 worth of Cannabis following a dramatic car chase.

According to the police report, the man was “driving dangerously” on the M1 towards Leeds and the force`s Specialist Operations team were deployed alongside West Yorkshire police`s Specialist Operations Unit in pursuit.

The vehicle was brought to a halt at Junction 38 of the M1 at Bretton by the police and a search of the vehicle uncovered the stash of the class B drugs. The driver was arrested on suspicion of dangerous driving, failure to stop for police, drink driving and possession of a Class-B drug.

North Yorkshire Police`s Roads Policing Group, Inspector Clive Turner commented that this incident shows that they are disrupting criminal activity in relation to a government crackdown on the illegal drugs trade: “Suspects may try to evade us, but we will use every tool and tactic at our disposal to remove illegal drugs from our communities.”

The government drugs strategy plans to curve the drugs epidemic by hoping to have disrupted 6,400 drug operations, a 20% increase – against activities of organised criminals and prevent around three-quarters of a million crimes, especially 140,000 neighbourhood crimes, through increases in drug treatment and opening more Rehab centres.

Drug use has become a rising problem in York as drugs related deaths tripled between 2009-2019, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

This is being tackled with help from York Council and support groups such as Blossom St Team, Young Person’s Service, Oaktrees Team and Needle Exchange who can be found through the Live Well York site.