International - Australia:Eight from 10 drug dealers dodge jail time

[Euphoric]

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/s...rom=public_rss

[top]Eight from 10 drug dealers dodge jail time

November 13, 2007 10:30am
EIGHT out of 10 convicted drug dealers are being let off without jail time by Queensland's courts.
Damning new figures reveal 5479 people have been convicted of serious trafficking, production or supplying offences since July 2005.

But just 938 were made to serve time behind bars while the rest were handed suspended sentences, intensive correction orders or a fine.

The figures - contained in a response by the Attorney-General Kerry Shine to a question on notice from the Opposition - also show the courts have failed to give a single drug dealer the maximum penalty of 25 years.

Coalition justice spokesman Mark McArdle yesterday condemned the low rate of imprisonment, saying jailing drug dealers was about protecting young people from a life of abuse.

"If we are going to be serious about stopping drugs and saving young people, we have got to make sure people who peddle in death are dealt with severely," he said.

"The fact that no one has got the maximum penalty highlights an inability... to establish clear parameters that, if you are going to deal in these substances, you are going to spend a long time in jail."

However, the Attorney-General said sentencing was a matter of judicial discretion and judges had to take into account the circumstances of the case and the defendant.

"There are so many different circumstances in the supply of drugs," he said. "It could be the Mr Bigs supplying or it could be siblings supplying to other siblings.

"The circumstances vary so much and we believe the best people to determine what sentence should be imposed in this, and other areas of the law, should be judges."

The figures came as the State Government yesterday talked up its efforts in the war on drugs by re-announcing plans for new maximum penalties for illicit substances such as ecstasy and ice.

The new laws - to be introduced in Parliament this week - will re-classify ecstasy and another drug, "death", as Schedule 1 drugs, which will carry greater penalties.

The Government will also introduce a the concept of "analogue" into the Drugs Misuse Act, meaning that substances with a similar chemical structure and pharmacological effect will carry the same penalties.

Mr Shine said politicians were telling the judiciary the community felt offences were serious by increasing maximum penalties.

Oh no, another analogue act!? Poor Australia... Why the re-classification of ecstasy? Have the UK studies not been showing that it should be classified lower than alcohol and tobacco in terms of harm done?

Also, anyone know that "death" is?