lil angel15
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Qld Parliament passes tougher penalties for drugs offences
The Queensland Parliament has passed laws to increase the penalties for certain drug offences.
Both sides of the House supported the changes to re-classify the drugs MDMA or 'ecstasy' and PMA or 'death' as "schedule one" drugs.
The maximum penalties for possessing, supplying or trafficking those drugs will increase from 20 to 25 years.
Queensland Attorney-General Kerry Shine told Parliament the laws also ban substances similar to those named in the banned drug schedules.
"These substances are designed to get around drug laws by slightly shifting the molecular structure of a banned drug," he said.
"Designer drugs continue to be readily available, because they are so easy and cheap to produce and the production labs can be quickly established or moved.
"[The new laws will] strengthen the response to the changing face of illicit drug culture."
Opposition spokesman Mark McArdle says the tougher penalties need to be enforced.
"It does not go anywhere near getting the message out there that a maximum penalty is indeed going to be awarded," he said.
Amendments were also passed to bring Queensland into line with new Commonwealth laws regulating the use of genetic modification.
Both sides of the House supported the Bill, but independent MP Dorothy Pratt had concerns.
"We don't know the unknowns, and we are gambling on the future," she said.
She voted in favour of the laws, but One Nation MP Rosa Lee Long did not.
abc.net.au