CRIMINAL CASE NO. 115 OF 2010
COURT: You appear in this court today to be sentenced, following your plea of guilty in the Magistracy on 12 April of this year, to a single charge of trafficking unlawfully in dangerous drugs contrary to section 4(1)(a) and (3) of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, Cap 134.
The charge stipulates that on 8 September of 2009, you trafficked unlawfully in 18.17 grammes of a crystalline solid containing 17.39 grammes of methamphetamine hydrochloride, 13.71 grammes of cannabis in herbal form, 50 tablets containing 0.37 grammes of nimetazepam, and 0.01 grammes of nitrazepam, 3 tablets containing 0.21 grammes of 3,4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine.
The factual basis that you accepted in the Magistracy of your tendering a plea of guilty to the charge, which you confirmed in this court today, was set out in a Summary of Facts. On the afternoon of 8 September 2009, police officers observed you emerging from premises in Boundary Street in Mong Kok. On their execution of a search warrant on those premises, the dangerous drugs the subject of the charge were found.
On a table in the living room was found an electronic scale, a silver lighter, a large quantity of resealable plastic bags, tin foil containing “Ice”.
In response to being arrested for possession of the dangerous drugs, you asserted that they were for your own consumption, although you conceded that you gave drugs to friends when they came to get drugs from you. In a subsequent video record of interview, you admitted that you had purchased the drugs that day in Yau Ma Tei for $7,000.
You claimed that you distributed the “Ice” to friends who gave you money in return, although you said you did not charge them for the cannabis.
Turning then to your personal circumstances and mitigation, you are 47 years of age. Your counsel has told the court that in fact you are married; you have been married for several years to a lady who lives in the mainland. At the time of the offence you were unemployed. In fact, only three months earlier you had been released from drug addiction treatment centre.
You have a number of previous criminal convictions, including four offences in respect of dangerous drugs. In 1994, a term of 6 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, was imposed upon you in respect of the offence of possession of dangerous drugs. In 1998, in respect of two offences of unlawfully trafficking in dangerous drugs, you were sentenced to a total of 10 years’ imprisonment. In 2006 and February 2009, you were ordered to be detained in a drug addiction treatment centre for offences of possession of dangerous drugs.
Your counsel has urged the court to accept that part of the dangerous drugs in respect of which you have now been convicted were for self-consumption. The court invited you, or gave you the opportunity, to give or call evidence in respect of that element of self-consumption. However, you declined that opportunity.
Realistically, your counsel has submitted that in the result, the court accepts that a small amount of the drugs was for self-consumption. Again realistically, your counsel accepts that in your financial circumstances, it was necessary for you to sell drugs to get money to buy drugs in order to consume some yourself.
As the prime matter of mitigation, Mr Wong points to the fact of your early plea of guilty to the offence with which you are charged. He invites the court to concentrate when identifying the appropriate starting point on the amount of “Ice” that was found in which you unlawfully trafficked. He acknowledges that the amount of cannabis is sufficient that the court ought to have regard to that as well, but he goes on to suggest that given the very small quantities of the other drugs, the court can safely ignore them.
In the result, he submits that an appropriate starting point for sentence would be 7½ years’ imprisonment.
I turn then to identifying the appropriate starting point. You were unlawfully trafficking in several different dangerous drugs. However, I accept what Mr Wong has said, that it is the “Ice” that is the drug of significance. The amount is 17.39 grammes of methamphetamine hydrochloride. That amount falls, as Mr Wong has said, in the 10 to 70 grammes identified in the guidelines set out in Attorney‑General v Ching Kwok Hung of 7 to 10 years’ imprisonment.
Having regard to that amount of “Ice”, together with the relatively small amount of herbal cannabis, but accepting what Mr Wong has suggested, ignoring the other drugs, I take a starting point, as Mr Wong has suggested, of 7½ years’ imprisonment.
In light of your plea of guilty at the earliest stage in proceedings, you are entitled to a discount of one-third from the starting point taken for sentence.
Accordingly, the sentence imposed upon you is one of 5 years’ imprisonment.