This is very interesting.
The WA position
Sadly in WA, the Court of Appeal has already gone the other way. MDMA is meant to be considered as serious as methylamphetamine or heroin.
The offending judgement was Darwell and a few others have followed:
Another decision that demonstrates this gross misunderstanding by WA's highest Court about the effects of the drug is the following:
The Victorian Case
The negative thing for MDMA in this case is to be associated with cannabis. For me, the reason why drug traffickers are treated so harshly by the Courts is because Judges see day after day the misery and "terrible destruction" drugs cause in our community.
However, in the Australian community at least, those drugs that cause almost all of the damage are methylamphetamine, heroin, cannabis and alcohol. The vast majority of the Criminal Courts' work is caused solely through crimes:
(i) to feed drug addictions;
(ii) committed when under the influence of drugs; or
(iii) committed by people whose mind or life has become so destroyed by drugs, that they no longer function as an ordinary law abiding human being.
In short, Judges hate drug traffickers. But Judges cannot distinguish between the drugs through lack of understanding. They also find it hard to distinguish between drug traffickers based upon the type of drug (excluding cannabis) and the intended market of the particular drug.
The most important angle in this argument is to ask the Court, why must drug trafficking be punished so severely?
The answer (in my view) is because of the harm these drugs cause to the community. The individual user must come second.
Heroin, methylamphetamine and cannabis all cause signficant harm to the community, as does alcohol. They cause this harm because they are:
(i) addictive;
(ii) used everyday by people who commit drug related crime; and
(iii) they are the types of drugs that are abused by those persons who are most vulnerable in our community, who have the most problem,s and who have the least prospects.
MDMA must be removed from this category of drugs.
Judges who say MDMA is addictive or who say it is a drug that leads people to commit crimes against property or other people must be silenced. It is the one drug for which all the rhetoric and the principal ideology behind sentencing drug traffickers has almost zero application. It certainly has less application than it does for cannabis.
No one comes to Court and tells the Judge the ecstasy tablet made them do it. They do however come to Court and blame almost every other drug under the sun, including alcohol.
Cannabis
In WA the Parliament has legislated that anyone dealing in any prohibited drug except cannabis faces a maximum 25 years imprisonment. For those dealing in cannabis it is only a maximum 10 years. That is a clear indication from Parliament where cannabis sits as opposed to the other drugs. MDMA sadly, instead of being seen as being comparable or less serious than cannabis, has instead been pushed the other way and elevated towards heroin and methylamphetamine. It is simply not right.
In summary:
(1) Focus on why those that peddle drugs generally must be punished?
(2) When you answer that question, ask what is it about certain drugs that make them a "scourge" in the community.
(3) When you answer that question, ask does MDMA really fit that category, and then prove why, both scientifically and in everyday reality, it does not.
(4) Raise the other issues that have been discussed which focus more on the physiological effects on the user (to me a small point in sentencing drug traffickers)
(4) Hammer the point that merely because MDMA is part of the amphetamine family that does not make it anything like methylamphetamine, as to its effect on users, the patterns of its use, its capacity to cause violence, its addictiveness etc.
(5) Come up with counter arguments to what is listed below.
Of course the government with argue there are other reasons, as opposed to simply the harm caused to the community, why MDMA must continue to be punished severely. These include:
(1) increasing prevalence and need for deterrence
(2) it is a drug largely aimed at and used by young people
(3) it is a drug that inevitably leads to methylamphetamine use, either in conjunction with the MDMA (most on here are guilty of this) or after the user leaves MDMA behind (rightly or wrongly, this will be the argument)
(4) reducing the penalties will only increase the amount of MDMA in the community
(5) the potential cause of mental illness given the drugs unknown long term effects
(6) public interest reasons for not seeming soft on "hard" drugs
This is a vital argument to win. Its benefits flow down from convicted drug traffickers to the everyday users. If a Court sentencing an MDMA trafficker is prepared to put him or her in the same boat as a cannabis trafficker, as opposed to a methylamphetamine or heroin trafficker, it follows that MDMA users may begin to be seen like those who "smoke the odd bit of weed". As opposed to how they are seen now.
(Of course this does not help the recreational users of methylamphetamine who don't contribute to the level of crime and decaying social fabric, but it's a start.)
The WA position
Sadly in WA, the Court of Appeal has already gone the other way. MDMA is meant to be considered as serious as methylamphetamine or heroin.
The offending judgement was Darwell and a few others have followed:
For our Judges it is basically that because MDMA is so closely related to methylamphetamine, and because methylamphetamine had become such a scourge in the community, MDMA must be considered as equally serious.
Another decision that demonstrates this gross misunderstanding by WA's highest Court about the effects of the drug is the following:
To equate MDMA with methylamphetamine because they are in the amphetamine family and to call it a dangerous drug of addiction is mistating the point.
The Victorian Case
The negative thing for MDMA in this case is to be associated with cannabis. For me, the reason why drug traffickers are treated so harshly by the Courts is because Judges see day after day the misery and "terrible destruction" drugs cause in our community.
However, in the Australian community at least, those drugs that cause almost all of the damage are methylamphetamine, heroin, cannabis and alcohol. The vast majority of the Criminal Courts' work is caused solely through crimes:
(i) to feed drug addictions;
(ii) committed when under the influence of drugs; or
(iii) committed by people whose mind or life has become so destroyed by drugs, that they no longer function as an ordinary law abiding human being.
In short, Judges hate drug traffickers. But Judges cannot distinguish between the drugs through lack of understanding. They also find it hard to distinguish between drug traffickers based upon the type of drug (excluding cannabis) and the intended market of the particular drug.
The most important angle in this argument is to ask the Court, why must drug trafficking be punished so severely?
The answer (in my view) is because of the harm these drugs cause to the community. The individual user must come second.
Heroin, methylamphetamine and cannabis all cause signficant harm to the community, as does alcohol. They cause this harm because they are:
(i) addictive;
(ii) used everyday by people who commit drug related crime; and
(iii) they are the types of drugs that are abused by those persons who are most vulnerable in our community, who have the most problem,s and who have the least prospects.
MDMA must be removed from this category of drugs.
Judges who say MDMA is addictive or who say it is a drug that leads people to commit crimes against property or other people must be silenced. It is the one drug for which all the rhetoric and the principal ideology behind sentencing drug traffickers has almost zero application. It certainly has less application than it does for cannabis.
No one comes to Court and tells the Judge the ecstasy tablet made them do it. They do however come to Court and blame almost every other drug under the sun, including alcohol.
Cannabis
In WA the Parliament has legislated that anyone dealing in any prohibited drug except cannabis faces a maximum 25 years imprisonment. For those dealing in cannabis it is only a maximum 10 years. That is a clear indication from Parliament where cannabis sits as opposed to the other drugs. MDMA sadly, instead of being seen as being comparable or less serious than cannabis, has instead been pushed the other way and elevated towards heroin and methylamphetamine. It is simply not right.
In summary:
(1) Focus on why those that peddle drugs generally must be punished?
(2) When you answer that question, ask what is it about certain drugs that make them a "scourge" in the community.
(3) When you answer that question, ask does MDMA really fit that category, and then prove why, both scientifically and in everyday reality, it does not.
(4) Raise the other issues that have been discussed which focus more on the physiological effects on the user (to me a small point in sentencing drug traffickers)
(4) Hammer the point that merely because MDMA is part of the amphetamine family that does not make it anything like methylamphetamine, as to its effect on users, the patterns of its use, its capacity to cause violence, its addictiveness etc.
(5) Come up with counter arguments to what is listed below.
Of course the government with argue there are other reasons, as opposed to simply the harm caused to the community, why MDMA must continue to be punished severely. These include:
(1) increasing prevalence and need for deterrence
(2) it is a drug largely aimed at and used by young people
(3) it is a drug that inevitably leads to methylamphetamine use, either in conjunction with the MDMA (most on here are guilty of this) or after the user leaves MDMA behind (rightly or wrongly, this will be the argument)
(4) reducing the penalties will only increase the amount of MDMA in the community
(5) the potential cause of mental illness given the drugs unknown long term effects
(6) public interest reasons for not seeming soft on "hard" drugs
This is a vital argument to win. Its benefits flow down from convicted drug traffickers to the everyday users. If a Court sentencing an MDMA trafficker is prepared to put him or her in the same boat as a cannabis trafficker, as opposed to a methylamphetamine or heroin trafficker, it follows that MDMA users may begin to be seen like those who "smoke the odd bit of weed". As opposed to how they are seen now.
(Of course this does not help the recreational users of methylamphetamine who don't contribute to the level of crime and decaying social fabric, but it's a start.)
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