Part 107 does not write its own alcohol and drug rules from scratch — it borrows them. Under § 107.27, anyone manipulating the flight controls of a small unmanned aircraft system, or acting as remote pilot in command (the person in legal charge of the flight) or visual observer (the person maintaining visual contact with the aircraft) — roles introduced in Chapter 1 — must comply with §§ 91.17 and 91.19, the same fitness-for-flight provisions that govern pilots of crewed aircraft. In plain terms, § 91.17 bars anyone from acting as a crewmember within eight hours after drinking alcohol, while under the influence of alcohol, while using any drug that affects their faculties in a way contrary to safety, or with a blood or breath alcohol concentration of 0.04 or greater. § 91.19 bars operating an aircraft with knowledge that narcotic drugs, marijuana, or depressant or stimulant drugs or substances are carried aboard, unless that carriage is authorized under federal or state law. Part 107 does not restate these prohibitions itself, but the rest of this subpart shows how much weight they carry: § 107.59 confirms that § 91.17 covers a blood-alcohol test a law enforcement officer can request, and § 107.57(b) treats committing “an act prohibited by § 91.17(a) or § 91.19(a)” as grounds for denial, suspension, or revocation — right alongside drug convictions. The FAA is telling you, in effect, that a drone’s ability to fly itself does not reduce the legal or safety standard for the human deciding where it goes. Sitting at a laptop instead of a cockpit changes nothing about the standard you are held to.

The consequences for violating that standard are specific and severe, and § 107.57 draws a careful distinction between two different triggers for the clock. For a drug-related conviction, the one-year denial window runs from the date of final conviction: under § 107.57(a), a conviction for growing, processing, manufacturing, selling, disposing of, possessing, transporting, or importing narcotic drugs, marijuana, or depressant or stimulant drugs or substances is grounds for denial of a remote pilot certificate application for up to one year after that conviction, or for suspension or revocation of a certificate already held. For committing an act prohibited by § 91.17(a) or § 91.19(a), the window instead runs from the date of the act itself, under § 107.57(b) — the identical one-year exposure, but measured differently. For example, if such an act occurs on January 15, the FAA can deny an application filed anytime up through the following January 15 on that ground, or pursue suspension or revocation of a certificate already held. The remote pilot certificate with a small UAS rating (the legal credential required to act as remote pilot in command, obtained by demonstrating aeronautical knowledge under §§ 107.61 and 107.63) is not a one-time credential; it remains conditioned on staying clean of these offenses.

Refusal is treated as seriously as violation. Under § 107.59, refusing to submit to a blood-alcohol test when a law enforcement officer requests one, or refusing to furnish or authorize release of test results the Administrator requests, is itself grounds for denial of an application for up to one year after the refusal, or for suspension or revocation of an existing certificate. There is no safe harbor in declining to be tested — the refusal is its own offense, carrying the same penalty range as the underlying conduct it would have revealed.