Prison for drug addict

Press, 18 November 1989, Page 9

Prison for drug addict

A drug addict whose offence was described by his counsel as primarily self-destructive was sentenced in the High Court yesterday to eight months imprisonment. The defendant, Michael Joseph Reid, aged 32, unemployed, had pleaded guilty in the District Court, and had been committed to the High Court for sentence, on a charge of manufacturing morphine, a class B controlled drug, in a Christchurch house on August 22. The police statement relating to the offence was that Reid was found at the house in possession of a needle and syringe which contained traces of morphine. A homebake kit for making the drug also was found on the premises and Reid told the police that the drug residue was from morphine he had made earlier.

Two other persons in the house also received prison terms on related offences when they appeared earlier. Imposing the prison term yesterday, Mr Justice Williamson said he was sentencing Reid on the basis that the manufacture was of a small amount of the drug, for Reid’s own use. As a condition of the prison sentence his Honour recommended to the prison authorities that Reid receive, immediately, such medical assistance as he needed to help overcome his drug addiction; and that upon his release on parole efforts be made to ensure his placement at Odyssey House for a similar programme of treatment. Reid’s counsel, Mr Douglas Taffs, had sought a sentence short of imprisonment