Section 107.57(a) is the drug-conviction rule for a remote pilot certificate. A conviction for violating a Federal or State statute on the growing, processing, manufacture, sale, disposition, possession, transportation, or importation of narcotic drugs, marijuana, or depressant or stimulant drugs or substances is grounds for denial of an application for up to 1 year after the date of final conviction, or for suspension or revocation of a remote pilot certificate with a small UAS rating. It is not a mandatory lifetime ban, and it is not only a civil fine with no effect on an application or an existing certificate.
What the conviction paragraph does
Section 107.61 opens eligibility with "subject to the provisions of §§107.57 and 107.59." A person can meet age, English, fitness, and the knowledge test, and still face §107.57 before a certificate is issued. The conviction paragraph is grounds for action. "Up to 1 year after the date of final conviction" is the denial period §107.57(a) states. It is not an automatic denial of exactly one year in every case, and it is not a statement that the FAA must wait a year and then ignore the conviction. Suspension or revocation of a certificate the person already holds is the other branch. A choice that offers only a civil fine, with the certificate untouched, drops that branch.
The list of conduct is the list in the regulation: growing, processing, manufacture, sale, disposition, possession, transportation, or importation. The substances named are narcotic drugs, marijuana, and depressant or stimulant drugs or substances. The text does not carve marijuana out of that list. Do not add an exception the section does not contain. Do not shrink the list to "sale only" or "federal only." State statutes are named beside Federal statutes.
Paragraph (b) of the same section is a different rule. It covers committing an act prohibited by §91.17(a) or §91.19(a), with or without a conviction. The operating alcohol limits are the alcohol rules page. A refusal to take an alcohol test is §107.59, on the refusal page. Keep the conviction paragraph on convictions. A pilot who has no conviction, and who has not committed a §91.17(a) or §91.19(a) act, is not inside §107.57 because a headline used the word "drug."
Loss of control is not a conviction rule
A practice set can place an operations question next to this eligibility rule. That question is not a second reading of §107.57. Section 107.19(c) requires the remote pilot in command to ensure the small unmanned aircraft will pose no undue hazard to other people, other aircraft, or other property in the event of a loss of control for any reason. Any reason includes lost link, a flyaway, and a power failure. The duty is not limited to flights that have no lost-link failsafe. It is not limited to autonomous or pre-programmed segments. It is not limited to flight within 400 feet of a structure.
Before a roof inspection, the remote pilot notices that a lost link would send the automatic return-to-home path over a crowded sidewalk. Section 107.19(c) requires the flight to be planned so a loss of control would not create that undue hazard. Move the launch point, change the failsafe routing, or do not launch. A configured failsafe does not retire the paragraph. The failsafe path is one of the ways control can be lost and the aircraft can still hurt someone. The remote pilot owns that outcome. Nothing in this paragraph asks whether the pilot has a drug conviction. Treating the hazard sentence as a certificate-eligibility trick is how the two items get confused.
Information resources are not convictions either
Weather briefings, NOTAMs, and the aircraft manual are information resources in crew resource management. Crew resource management is the effective use of available resources: human, hardware, and information. Information is one of those types. The wrong labels are external pressures and hazardous attitudes. A METAR is not "get-there-itis." A NOTAM is not a hazardous attitude. The manual is not a conviction record.
Use them as what they are. Before launch, the remote pilot reads the weather briefing, checks NOTAMs for the site, and confirms the lost-link behavior in the aircraft manual. That is gathering information resources so the §107.19(c) plan is real. It does not document a §107.57(a) offense, and it does not replace the eligibility rules on the age and medical page. A pilot who memorizes "manual equals hazardous attitude" has sorted the CRM item into the wrong bin. A pilot who memorizes "any drug word equals a lifetime ban" has sorted the conviction item into the wrong bin.
Read §107.57(a) as written. Covered Federal or State drug conviction: grounds to deny an application for up to 1 year after final conviction, or to suspend or revoke the certificate. No lifetime ban written into the section. No marijuana exception written into the section. Then leave the section. The hazard duty is §107.19(c), for a loss of control for any reason. The briefing, the NOTAM, and the manual are information resources.
Practice the three items on the free practice test. The course is at pricing.