A DRUG-driver had been using cannabis to help him sleep after losing family members, a court has been told.

Alexander Green admitted one count of drug-driving when he appeared before magistrates in Hereford in March.

Police had pulled Green over in Hereford's Bath Street at 1.40am on December 16, prosecutor Mark Hambling said.

Green was asked to provide a roadside breath test, which showed no alcohol, but was arrested after failing a drug swab test.

An evidential blood test revealed that Green, who had been behind the wheel of a red Vauxhall Frontera, had 3.5 microgrammes of controlled class B drug product delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol per litre of blood. The legal limit is two microgrammes.

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Emma Thorne, for Green, said the 26-year-old had smoked cannabis on a very occasional basis and that this accounted for the reading.

"He has had a difficult couple of years after losing both his grandparents and then his uncle, who was a father figure to him," she said.

"He has really struggled with that and started using cannabis to help him sleep."

The court heard that Green was not in work but is hoping to start a new job labouring at a scrapyard.

Green, of Orchard Close in Bishopstone, Herefordshire, was fined £120 and disqualified from driving for 12 months. He must also pay prosecution costs of £60 and a £48 victim surcharge.