Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 09 Hansard (Tuesday, 17 August 2004) . . Page.. 3690 ..

serious drug offences. In the words of the minister, it is “a modern regime of offences to deal more effectively with serious drug crime in the ACT”.

Who does oppose having tough laws against serious drug offenders? I do not oppose them. But serious offenders are only part of what this bill is about. “Serious” has a plain meaning. Ask anyone in the street and they will tell you that “serious” refers to those making serious money out of drugs or dealing in big quantities. Under this legislation, that is not true: a teenager who on sells a small amount of cannabis or an ecstasy pill is a serious drug offender.

The legislation applies in a big way to users in ordinary situations—look no further than subclauses (5) to (8) of clause 603. If the home grower of cannabis has sold any amount at all, even if it is less than the standard 10-gram deal, he or she will face a penalty of $30,000 or three years in prison, or both. That is nothing to what the user-dealer of heroin or even the teenage party raver will face. They will be looking at a penalty of $100,000 or 10 years in prison, or both—a tenfold increase in the fine and a twofold increase in the length of imprisonment.

The explanatory statement is clear about that. Subclause 603 (7) applies to trafficking in any amount of a controlled drug other than cannabis and subclause 608 (8) applies to any amount of cannabis. The informal transactions that I mentioned are defined as trafficking under clause 602. The use of that term is a distortion of the language.

That is standard practice in the bill. It labels a wide range of common behaviours of grassroots drug users as serious drug offences. It is standard practice for those higher up in the pyramid to use the desperation of users and ingenuousness of children, the very people that the law should be designed to protect, as gofers. The bill transforms all these people into serious criminals.

I will give a few examples of action into which users are commonly sucked that could leave them facing 25 years or more in prison. Users who assist in packing, handling, storing or transporting drugs for payment in kind are traffickers. The explanatory statement admits that these are “comparatively minor figures”.

Part 6.5 of the bill concerns drug offences involving children. Children are excluded from liability for the offences of this part, but they are exposed to other draconian penalties of the bill. The explanatory statement explains that children above the age of criminal responsibility—10 years of age—remain liable for the offences in other parts. For example, a child who sells to another or engages in other trafficking activities will be liable for trafficking under clause 603.

A couple of cannabis plants grown by a user would not normally amount to a serious drug offence, but when harvested could well expose the user to such a charge. The report of the Model Criminal Code Officers Committee that this bill is implementing notes that an average cannabis plant, 1.6 metres tall with a one metre girth, will yield an average of 250 grams of dry, usable cannabis. It adds:

There is an obvious and clear discrepancy between the potential liability of the cultivator before and after harvesting. The small number of plants, once harvested, will almost always exceed the trafficable quantity and may exceed the commercial quantity of 2.5 kilograms.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .