Advice to the Sentencing Guidelines Council : sentencing for drug offences.

  • Great Britain. Sentencing Advisory Panel
Date:
2010
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Advice to the Sentencing Guidelines Council : sentencing for drug offences. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    INTRODUCTION 1. Following a request from the Sentencing Guidelines Council, the Sentencing Advisory Panel has produced advice on a range of issues related to the sentencing of drug offences. 2. The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (MDA 1971) is the main piece of legislation creating offences relating to controlled drugs; this advice covers those drug offences which are sentenced frequently or result in either a Significant number of custodial sentences or lengthy custodial sentences, namely production, importation and exportation, supply or offering to supply, possession with intent to supply and possession. The Panel also consulted in relation to the offence of permitting premises to be used for a drug- related activity, which, although not falling within those criteria, is closely associated with offences of supply and use. 3. The Council and Panel have considered sentencing for drug offences previously. In 2000, the Court of Appeal asked the Panel to produce advice on sentencing offences involving opium: existing guidelines based on weight and intended primarily for cocaine and heroin offences were thought inappropriate as opium had a lower street value. The Panel's advice! was adopted by the Court of Appeal in its judgment in Mashaollahi,? which maintained comparisons based on weight equivalencies, but with street value and purity being secondary factors. The number of opium offences sentenced each year continues to be small (opium offences are recorded within the wider category ‘other class A’ for which there ' Importation and Possession of Opium - Advice to the Court of Appeal: 3 May 2000, p.1, www.sentencing-guidelines.gov.uk 2 [2001] 1 Cr App R (S) 300, [2000] EWCA Crim 52 were only 319 sentences recorded in 2007). Home Office data records 36 seizures of opium in 2006/07 and the FSS is aware of 23 seizures in 2008; in both cases, most quantities are small. However, opium has been included in this consultation on the basis that the judgment in Mashaollahi will be superseded by the Council's definitive guideline. In May 2008, the Council published revised Magistrates’ Court Sentencing Guidelines (MCSG) which include guidelines for the more common drug offences sentenced in a magistrates’ court; these have been incorporated into the Panel's proposals. The Panel's proposals apply to adult offenders only; separate legislative provisions and sentencing principles apply to young offenders, now set out in the definitive Council guideline Overarching Principles: Sentencing Youths.