Sentencing by weight: proposed changes to the Commonwealth Code's serious drug offences

Abstract

Major increases in the punishment for Criminal Code offences of trafficking, commercial cultivation and manufacture of controlled drugs are under consideration by the Commonwealth government. The proposed increases would be effected by new model schedules of controlled drugs which would have two effects. First, the model schedules would extend the penalties of imprisonment for life and imprisonment for 25 years to a range of substances that are currently the subject of comparatively minor, regulatory penalties. Secondly, they would extend the penalties of imprisonment for life and imprisonment for 25 years to far smaller quantities of the existing class of controlled drugs. The model schedules are proposed as a model for uniform adoption in all Australian jurisdictions. They have already been adopted in South Australia. This article discusses the Commonwealth proposals with particular reference to the lack of evidence or argument to justify the dramatic increases in penalties proposed.