What was claimed
A police officer appears to be taking drugs while on duty in a viral video.
Our verdict
The video was made as a prank. Police Scotland told us that it wasn’t a real police officer.
Viral video of police officer taking drugs doesn’t feature a real officer
31 January 2019
We factchecked a viral video which appears to show a police officer taking drugs—the video has been shared over 34,000 times on Facebook.
The video actually shows a prank, as reported in a number of media outlets, and the person in it is not a real police officer. According to reports the man featured in the video is wearing an “imitation police uniform” and is snorting sugar.
Police Scotland told us that: "Following reports of a video circulating on social media, which suggested an on-duty officer was involved in drug taking, an investigation was launched to establish the video's authenticity. We are satisfied that the individual featured, is not a police officer and enquiries will continue to establish potential criminality."
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as satire as the original video seems to have been intended as a prank.