Pubdate: Fri, 20 Jun 2003
Source: Royal Gazette, The (Bermuda)
Copyright: 2003 The Royal Gazette Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.theroyalgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2103

EQUAL JUSTICE

Defence lawyers have, unsurprisingly, questioned the heavy fines being 
meted out to cruise ship visitors caught with illegal drugs in their cabins.

It is natural for the defence bar to question this because it is their job 
to try to get the lowest possible sentences for the people they represent.

In this case, they have a point.

Bermuda, rightly, has strict drugs laws. It neither needs nor wants a 
reputation as a place where drugs are easily bought and consumed by 
visitors or residents. And the devastation wrought by drug abuse is known 
to every family on the Island.

But justice needs to be even-handed and in the case of visitors to the 
Island caught with small amounts of drugs it is not being administered in a 
fair handed way.

Bermuda residents caught for the first time with small amounts of drugs for 
their personal use would face fines in the low hundreds of dollars or, more 
likely these days, a referral to drugs court and a period of rehabilitation.

Visitors, because they have "imported" drugs, are fined $1,000 each, in 
spite of the fact that the drugs, imported or not, are for their own use. 
They claim, with some justice, that they are not adequately warned about 
how seriously the crime is viewed in Bermuda.

In addition, people caught with heroin and cocaine which are unquestionably 
more dangerous drugs than cannabis, receive the same fines.

Government needs to consider a more even-handed policy.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens