NEWS : 1.7.09 - Ecstasy 'dealer' was selling party pills ( NZ )

Ecstasy 'dealer' was selling party pills

July 01, 2009

Ecstasy 'dealer' was selling party pills

Hokitika teenager Brodie James Surgenor and his customers were duped into thinking he was dealing in the class B drug ecstasy, when in fact it was party pills.

Benzyl-piperazine or BZP was not illegal at that stage, though it has since been reclassified as a class C drug and cannot be sold legally.

Surgenor was aged 18 when he sold pills among his friends and because he believed they were ecstasy he ended up pleading guilty to charges of conspiring and attempting to supply the drug.

He pleaded guilty before his trial and was sent to the Christchurch District Court for sentence by Judge Raoul Neave yesterday, when a sentence of three months community detention and 150 hours of community work was imposed.

Surgenor got a reduction on his sentence because he had co-operated with the police and provided the name of the person who supplied him with the pills.

Judge Neave noted that Surgenor had paid a price for the co-operation. There had been “physical enforcement” meted out to him and he had lost some of his friends.

“That may give you pause to think about whether these people were real friends,” the judge told Surgenor.

The person who supplied him with the pills — his name is suppressed in case the police make another attempt to prosecute him — has so far escaped all punishment because he was not committed for trial at the end of the depositions hearing.

Surgenor now wants to move to Christchurch. He is hoping his apprenticeship training will not be delayed because of the convictions.

Defence counsel Elizabeth Bulger sought a discharge without conviction for Surgenor but Judge Neave said he did not think that was appropriate. He said personal circumstances counted for little where there was drug dealing.

Miss Bulger said: “He is clearly a small player in a much bigger operation. His behaviour is relatively limited and the amounts we are talking about are not very significant.”

Judge Neave commented: “He no doubt thought that this was a bit of fun, easy money, no doubt failing to engage his brain before acting, and giving no thought to the consequences of what he was doing.”

Police raided his address and found pills. Surgenor told police he had been selling them to his associates for $70 each.

His supplier had given him 10 tablets and Surgenor was to get one tablet for every 10 he sold. He later received 45 tablets to on-sell, and these were found when the search warrant was executed.

“All of those involved were of the view that these were ecstasy tablets — class B,” said Judge Neave. “Upon analysis, they were found to contain BZP, which at the time was not a controlled drug. Ironically, you were not committing anything like the offence you thought you were.”

He noted Surgenor, now 19, was a first-time drug offender, who had co-operated with the police. “It was a bigger fish who got you into all this.”

The pre-sentence report indicated no problems with alcohol or drug use. It said that Surgenor had been “trying to impress the wrong people”.

He was a young man with some potential, a good work ethic, and a supportive family background.

“This was a piece of one-off juvenile idiocy that is unlikely to be repeated,” he said.

The community detention has been ordered at Surgenor’s address in Hokitika, with the curfew starting on Friday.

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