Quantity Thresholds for Drug Possession: A Policy Perspective

Lifeline Project
July 2006

 

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The 2005 Drugs Act has a number of stated aims including the enhancement of Police and Court powers against drug offenders by the creation of a new presumption of intent to supply where a defendant is found to be in possession of a certain quantity of controlled drugs (view source). This Act came into force on 1st January 2006 .

Prior to this update the legislative framework (as set out in Section 5 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971) stated that  ‘it is an offence for a person to have a controlled drug in his possession, whether lawfully or not, with intent to supply it to another …’ but was non-directive in terms of any threshold quantity by which an assumption of guilt (or innocence) of this offence would be made. The insertion of a Subsection 4A within this Act sets out a new framework of ‘presumed guilt’ (but no mention of ‘presumed innocence’) whereby " if it is proved that the accused had an amount of a controlled drug in his possession which is not less than the prescribed amount, the court or jury must assume that he had the drug in his possession with the intent to supply ‘ (view source)

This change in the legislative framework has given rise to considerable speculation with regards to what would or should be considered to be the appropriate ‘prescribed amount’ that would (automatically) presume Possession with Intent to Supply (PIS). An in-depth discussion of this issue is undertaken within the paper ‘Quantity thresholds for distinguishing drug possession from possession with intent to supply in Britain : a review of relevant evidence’  [Newcombe R (2006), Lifeline Project]. It includes a review of potential ‘prescribed’ or ‘threshold’ amounts (see snapshot in Table 1), research data concerning amounts purchased and used, and drug quantity thresholds adopted by different countries.

TABLE 1

	ACMD November 2005*	Home Office June 2006**
Cannabis	112g resin (~ 4 oz )	5 grams (~ 1 / 5 oz )
	500g herb (~ 7 1 / 2 oz )	5 grams (~ 1 / 5 oz )
Amphetamines	14 grams	14 grams
Ecstasy	10 tablets	5 tablets (1.5g)
Heroin	7 grams	2 grams
Cocaine	7 grams	2 grams
Crack	7 grams	2 grams

* Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) recommendations to Home Office.

** Guardian report (leaked document): Home Office revised amounts in letter to ACMD.

~ approximate amounts (rounded up and down)

There are a number of factors that affects the amounts purchased for personal use by people including economic reasons, ease of access, concerns about safety, fears about detection, type of drug, patterns of drug use and the amounts used. Setting a threshold amount at a low level would potentially have a number of effects including:

• Increased amount of individual resources spent on drugs (i.e. having to buy smaller amounts is more expensive whereby dealers make more money and purchasers have less to spend on other items for themselves or their families).

• More time and resources spent on travelling to make a purchase, again having an impact on purchaser’s disposable income for other items. In addition, the potential for those who travel some distance being tempted to take risks in terms of purchasing over the threshold amount (particularly for rural purchasers or those having to travelling out of area or choosing to do so for reasons of anonymity and/or safety).

• Where areas or properties associated with purchasing are perceived as unsafe there would be an increase in the number of visits and time spent in potentially risky situations. In addition, requiring to make more frequent purchases may influence the decision to risk purchasing in less safe locations if there is an economic and/or time pressure that makes safer purchasing locations more problematic.

• Having to make more frequent visits for purchasing may have an impact on the ability to organise childcare with an increased risk of parents and carers being tempted to allow children and young people to accompany them, or alternatively to take risks in terms of purchasing over the threshold amount.

• Increasing the number of visits to dealers increases the likely frequency of exposure to other (potentially more problematic) drugs, where more than one type of drug is available for purchase at a particular location or area.

• Setting threshold amount unrealistically low for one drug may potentially make other drugs with more attractive thresholds appear to be a safer option in terms of the legal repercussions.

Setting the threshold amounts at a low level has the potential to lead to an increase in poverty for some people, and to expose purchasers to more risks in a range of ways. In addition, as there is a presumption of guilt, the law should reflect this by not unjustly penalising people for a crime not committed. Research data shows that 60% of cannabis purchasing is for amounts over an 1 / 8 [cited in Newcombe R (2006), Lifeline Project]. As the next commonly purchased amount is a 1 / 4 this would presume guilt of PIS, according to the June 2006 figures, for a not inconsiderable number of the population (i.e. over 2 million).

As there is no ‘presumed innocence’, setting a more realistic threshold level poses few problems (in terms of appropriate legal responses) as this would not preclude a charge of PIS where appropriate evidence was available.

For these reasons it seems sensible to set a threshold amount that reflected the bulk of purchases reported for personal use, thereby not making a presumption of guilt where research suggests that PIS was not perpetrated, i.e. a threshold amount that covered 90% of such cases as shown in Table 2 [cited in Newcombe R (2006), Lifeline Project].

TABLE 2

	Amounts that would account for 90% of personal purchases
Cannabis	56 grams (just under 2 oz )
Amphetamines	14 grams
Ecstasy	30 tablets*
Heroin	4 grams
Cocaine/ Crack	4 grams

*according to recent data from Mixmag Magazine 2000-2006 [cited in Newcombe (2006)]

Setting the thresholds amounts at this level would ensure that for the bulk of purchasers no additional risks or harms would be encountered, and no false presumptions would be made about an intention to supply. Lifeline would also welcome a serious discussion as to whether it makes any sense to criminalise individuals for their personal drug use.