‘Licence to sell dope’

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34149, 10 May 1976, Page 2

‘Licence to sell dope’

(N Z. Press Association) HAMILTON. May 9. Light sentences imposed on people convicted of heroin offences are giving the criminal element “a licence to sell dope,” Anchorage Hostel director (Mr Paul Phillips) said in Hamilton. Mr Phillips, a former addict now involved in rehabilitating drug users, said probation, periodic detention and small fines such as $lOO were no deterrent to young people selling and using drugs. And the people involved in trying to “clean up” the drug scene were just wasting their time if they did not have the support of the Courts in handing out stronger penalties to deter criminals from re-offending, he said. “I believe we are starting to get the heroin drug scene under control, but if we are going to control it in the community we have got to look to the Courts and the authorities for this control.’’ Mr Phillips said his comments resulted from two recent cases involving the

sentencing of people convicted of selling heroin. In one case, in Hamilton, a youth was sentenced to periodic detention and probation for selling two small capsules of heroin, and in the other a man was fined $lOO in Auckland for selling one ounce of the drug. “Probation. periodic detention and small fines are definitely no deterrent to young people selling dope. It is giving the criminal element a licence to sell dope. “A person committing other offences such as burglary or drinking and driving with a higher risk of being caught and a smaller profit than drug peddlers, would probably get a longer term of imprisonment than the drug peddler. “Fines and penalties should be more in proportion to the nature of the offences,” he said. But there was little hope of this, with the new Act relating to drug offences providing only marginally increased penalties compared with the 1965 Narcotics Act, he said.