Pubdate: Wed, 06 Sep 2000 Source: Canberra Times (Australia) Copyright: 2000 Canberra Times Contact: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/ Author: David McLennan HEROIN SEEN NOW AS 'HARDLY CRIMINAL' Possession of small amounts of heroin was so widespread that people "hardly regard it as being criminal", Chief Justice Jeffrey Miles said yesterday. "Let's face it, heroin is in widespread use in the community and the jail system . . . it wouldn't take us very long to leave this courtroom and go and find some heroin," Chief Justice Miles said. "The law has almost forgotten possession of heroin, it is so much part of everyday life that it is no longer an aggravating factor any more. It is commonplace and commonly people in the community . . . hardly regard it as being criminal." He was commenting at the trial of Robert Scott, 23, of Kambah, who has pleaded guilty of possessing heroin for supply and of possessing stolen property. Scott was found with a large number of stolen power tools in October 1999. In arguing for a treatment order rather than a jail sentence, Scott said urinalysis had returned traces of methadone because a fellow Belconnen Remand Centre detainee had played a joke on him. Armed robber Craig Paul Meyboom - who escaped from the centre last month and has since been recaptured - had put methadone in his coffee without telling him, "because he thought it would be funny to see me smashed". Detainees in the centre were constantly playing jokes, like putting rotten eggs in cells, on each other. He also said heroin and syringes were freely available in the centre. He asked not to be sent to jail, saying he had been there for a time while in custody because the remand centre was too full. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life in and out of jail - Goulburn [jail] is not a nice place," he said. "It is just not the nicest place. I have seen different things down there: people getting bashed and the after-effects of someone being stabbed." Scott's counsel, Craig Everson, asked that Scott be given a suspended sentence and a treatment order to help him continue to get off drugs. The court has heard Scott has made previous unsuccessful attempts to stop using drugs. Chief Justice Miles will sentence Scott, who has spent the past 10 months in custody, on Friday. - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck