Coalition to tackle ‘ice’ use and crack down on dealers

• Mandatory drug tests for ice users on CCOs and persons arrested for an indictable offence and thought to be under the influence of drugs
• Tighter asset forfeiture laws for ice dealers to ensure their crime doesn’t pay
• Napthine Coalition Government building a safer Victoria

A re-elected Napthine Coalition Government will introduce a range of tough measures to tackle ice, giving police and corrections authorities new powers to detect offenders using ice and making it harder for drug dealers to profit from their crimes.

Attorney-General Robert Clark said use of methylamphetamine – commonly known as ‘ice’ – has become a serious problem for many Victorian families and communities.

The Coalition will introduce three new law enforcement measures to help tackle this scourge:

• giving Victoria Police the power to test persons for illicit drugs when they have been arrested for an indictable offence and are suspected of being under the influence of an illegal drug;
• mandatory drug screening for offenders on Community Correction Orders (CCO) for offences involving ice; and
• halving the quantities of ice at which automatic forfeiture provisions apply and which are deemed to be commercial or large commercial quantities attracting tougher penalties.

A re-elected Napthine Coalition Government will legislate to give police the power to require any person who has been arrested in relation to an indictable offence to undergo a drug screening test where police suspect that person is under the influence of an illegal drug. As with random drug testing of drivers, it will be an offence to refuse to take this test. Positive test results may be used as evidence to support charges for drug use.

“Providing police with the power to drug test persons arrested for serious crimes will help police to act more quickly on related offending. It will also ensure the drug use is dealt with by the court in sentencing the offender and in ordering measures for the offender to address their drug use as part of their sentence,” Mr Clark said.

A Coalition Government will also make it mandatory for any offender convicted of ice use who is placed on a CCO to undergo drug screening as a condition of the CCO.

Where screening shows an offender has used ice while on the CCO, the CCO will have been breached and the offender will be returned to court to be dealt with for the breach and to be re-sentenced for the original offence.

“Mandatory drug screening will significantly enhance community protection by helping to deter further drug use and associated offending,” Mr Clark said.

“Having offenders on CCOs knowing they are being screened for any further use, together with the other supports available to them under the CCO, will also help them to break their habit and turn away from further offending.”

A re-elected Napthine Coalition Government will also halve the quantity of ice that triggers the automatic forfeiture of property used in trafficking or acquired with the proceeds of the crime, reducing the quantity from 30 grams to 15 grams.

As well, the amounts of ice deemed to be commercial and large commercial quantities will also be halved. In future, 500 grams of ice will be deemed a large commercial quantity, rendering anyone trafficking that amount of ice liable to forfeit almost everything they own upon conviction, whether lawfully acquired or not, and liable to an average jail term of 14 years under the Coalition’s baseline sentencing reforms and a maximum of life.

The quantity of ice deemed a commercial quantity will also be reduced from 500 grams to 250 grams, rendering a trafficker liable to up to 25 years in jail.

“Given the ability of traffickers to manufacture ice locally and in smaller quantities, the current quantities make it too easy for traffickers to dodge the jail terms and asset forfeiture they deserve,” Mr Clark said.

“These changes will mean that more serious charges will apply to more offenders who manufacture or traffick in ice, rendering them liable for tougher penalties and asset confiscation.

“These changes will further reduce the profit motive that drives ice manufacture and trafficking, and make it easier for police to disrupt organised criminal enterprises in Victoria.”

A re-elected Napthine Coalition Government will bring legislation into Parliament to enact these reforms in 2015.

These reforms build on the ongoing work of the Coalition Government to tackle organised and drug related crime, through reforms including:

• establishing the Criminal Organisations Control Act and the Fortification Removal Act, to allow criminal bikie and similar gangs to be outlawed and fortifications on their premises demolished;
• new laws to strip serious drug offenders of almost all their assets;
• introducing a baseline sentence of 14 years imprisonment for large scale drug trafficking and manufacturing;
• enacting Victoria’s first unexplained wealth laws;
• equipping Victoria Police with 11 new Passive Alert Detection (PAD) dogs to help tackle ‘ice’ and other drugs;
• an increase in roadside drug driver testing from 42,000 to 100,000;
• the introduction of community correction orders to put real teeth into community based sentences;
• empowering courts to order curfews, non-association conditions and restrictions on an offender’s movements while subject to a CCO;
• toughening bail laws to make breach of bail an offence;
• empowering the higher courts to electronically monitor an offender’s compliance with CCO conditions; and
• reforming Victoria’s parole laws to make clear that community protection is the paramount consideration in all decisions about parole.