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When
the Drugs
Act 2005 was passed, it included an
amendment to the original Misuse
Of Drugs Act such that a court must assume that someone possessing
a specific quantity of drugs or above was intending to supply it.
At
the time, these amounts were not specified. Some dissent was noted in
opposition political parties and police organisations such as the ACPO,
mainly claims that when an amount was specified, drug dealers would
carry just under that amount in order to avoid prosecution for supply.
The difference between the punishment for a possession offence and a
supply offence is significant. Under the current laws, cannabis, possession
can lead to up to 2 years imprisonment, whereas supply gets up to 14
years.
At
the end of November 2005, the Telegraph
reported that values for these amounts had now
been proposed by the Home Office. The proposals for cannabis are
that possession of an amount greater than 4 ounces or 10 pieces of cannabis
resin, and half a kilogram or 20 bags of cannabis leaf, must be assumed
to be evidence for a supply offence. These limits may sound high at
first sight, but it is far from unheard of for personal stashes to reach
this level. This is particularly the case with the increasing amount
of people who grow their own cannabis for personal use in order to try
and avoid the added risks and dangers of going to black market drug
dealers, some of whom value profit over any sort of welfare consideration.
Of
course, as is usual with certain papers reporting on topics regarding
the War On Some Drugs, it was not reported with great clarity or objectivity,
rather under the headline "New
drugs limits to allow 500 'joints' for personal use". The figure
of 500 joints was attributed to the higher end of how many spliffs could
be made allegedly based on figures of amount of resin used per low-strength
joint from Drugscope.
The Daily Mail
went a few hundred better and claimed that 4 oz would be enough for
810 joints. As especially under prohibition, there can be no set amount
of cannabis per joint, the exact figure is pure conjecture and in the
end irrelevant. However the reporting spin and words such as "escape"
and "allow" have created the impression that this law change
is some sort of irresponsible free-for-all liberalisation whereby malicious
drug dealers will be able to wander down the street forcing 499-or-less
joints onto innocent children with impunity.
This
misinformation is not at all based on the reality of the situation,
and obscures a hugely worrying precedent which reverses the supposedly
steadfast concept of innocent until proven guilty.
Firstly,
there is no "liberalisation", or even a movement towards the
sensible regulation and control policies that could be seen under controlled
legalisation, here. Owning any amount of cannabis will still be illegal,
and selling any amount of cannabis will still be cause for a supply
offence. All penalties remain the same. These amounts are guidelines
to the upper limits of possession and nothing more. If it can be proven
(as would normally be the necessary case) that you are supplying someone
with cannabis, you will still be prosecuted for a supply offence no
matter how little cannabis you possess.
The
only thing that changes is that if you possess a greater amount of cannabis
than the limit is set at (i.e. 4 oz of resin if the current Home Office
proposals are kept), then irrespective of whether there is any evidence
that you intended to supply the cannabis, in the words of the Drugs
Act, "the court or jury must assume that he had the drug in
his possession with the intent to supply it". You may contest this,
but only if you can muster up hard evidence that you were not intending
to supply it.
This
is in direct contravention of the legal convention that you must both
have the intention of committing a crime ("mens rea"), and
actually commit a crime ("actus reus"). Following this legislation
it will be legal and indeed normal for you to be prosecuted for a supply
offence without anyone having to prove either of these factors. You
can be prosecuted for a crime, and end up with a long prison sentence,
without any semblance of evidence. There is a clear presumption against
innocence.
This
is an example of the already harmful and ineffective laws supposedly
governing the cannabis trade growing even more dangerous; in this case
further prejudicing our right to a fair trial. Indeed it is hard to
see how this legal development is compatible with Article 6 of the Human
Rights Act 1998 - "Everyone charged with a criminal offence
shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law".
Can
one really imagine the presumption made that, if you had a wine cellar
replete with 50 bottles of wine, you clearly are intending to commercially
supply alcohol on an unlicensed and hence illegal manner being taken
seriously with no other evidence?
Related
articles:
Last
updated 11th December 2005
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