COURT: The defendant pleads guilty to two charges of trafficking in dangerous drugs, contrary to Section 4(1)(a) and (3) of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, cap 134.
He was stopped and searched by police officers laying ambush when he entered the ground floor lobby of a hotel. He was found in possession of three bags of drugs.
Police officers gained access to a room in the hotel using a key in his possession. Further drugs were found inside a locked safe. Two “ice” pipes, with traces of “ice” and some packaging paraphernalia, consisting of three scales, some empty resealable plastic bags and one adhesive tape, were found on a shelf.
Upon analysis it was found that the drugs found from the defendant’s possession contained 0.1 grammes of cannabis in herbal form and 0.47 grammes of a solid containing 0.37 grammes of cocaine.
The drugs recovered in the room were 14.86 grammes of a crystalline solid containing 14.72 grammes of methamphetamine hydrochloride.
The total retail value of all the drugs was in the region of around HK$11,000.
The defendant admitted that he was trafficking in the drugs at the material time. He is now aged 34. He has eight previous convictions; six of which related to the offence of possession of dangerous drugs. His last conviction was for an offence of possession of dangerous drugs; date of sentence 25 June 2013 and he received 12 months’ imprisonment. I am told that that offence occurred on 20 March 2013 and the present offence was committed whilst on bail of that one.
By way of mitigation, I am told that the defendant, having been a drug addict for many years, was trafficking in the drugs in question to feed his own addiction and that part of the drugs, albeit amount uncertain, was intended for his own consumption.
It is also brought to my attention that although the present offence was committed on bail of the last, had the two cases been brought together and sentenced together, he would have received a partially concurrent sentence.
The present case involved three types of drugs; namely herbal cannabis, a small amount of cocaine, whilst the predominant drug for the purpose of sentencing is the 14.72 grammes of “ice”, which falls within a sentencing tariff of 10 to 70 grammes, that is a 7 to 10 years’ bracket.
I take into account the total narcotics in relation to the two charges and apply a combined approach in sentencing, meaning that had the total narcotics all been “ice” it would not have caused the bracket of tariff to change up to another level. I have also taken into account the mitigation that possibly a small amount of drugs were for his own consumption and the other factor that was brought to my attention, which is had this case been brought together with the possession of dangerous drugs’ case, for which he has already served his imprisonment sentence, he would have been entitled to a small discount.
Taking all these factors into account, I adopt an overall starting point of 7 years’ imprisonment for the two charges. I shall give him the full one-third discount for his guilty plea.
He is sentenced to 56 months’ imprisonment for the two charges and I apportion it as follows:
Charge 1, 10 months’ imprisonment. Charge 2, 56 months’ imprisonment to run concurrently.