What is Drug Supply?
Drug supply is defined by Section 25 of the Drugs Act as “a person who supplies, or who knowingly takes part of the supply of, a prohibited drug”.
Drug supply is an offence with serious penalties, including imprisonment, large fines and a criminal conviction.
Drug supply can include doing, permitting or attempting to do a number of different things such as:
- Distributing drugs
- Selling drugs
- Storing or keeping drugs intended for supply
- Forwarding or sending drugs to someone else
- Agreeing to supply drugs
- Receiving or developing drugs for supply
Drug supply does not include the following:
- A person arranging for another person to purchase a drug to sell back to them
- A person having drugs in their possession with the possibility that they might supply them at a later date (see deemed supply provisions for a further explanation)
- A person asking someone to hold drugs for them
Drug supply does include:
- Purchasing drugs between several people to sell and the dividing up the proceeds
- Selling non prohibited drugs under the pretence of them being prohibited drugs
- Providing drugs to others without payment
- Posting drugs, even if they are intercepted without arriving at their final destination
- Selling or giving someone else’s drugs to a third person
There are two different kinds of evidence that are generally presented in drug supply cases. Direct evidence is when there is clear evidence of supply, such as if the defendant sells drugs to an undercover police officer.
Other cases rely on circumstantial evidence to support the prosecution. In order for a person to be proven guilty from circumstantial evidence, the prosecution has to prove that drug supply is the only reasonable explanation for their evidence.
Circumstantial evidence can include:
- Video surveillance
- The presence of multiple mobile phones or large amounts of money
- The existence of drug manufacturing equipment, such as pill presses, scales and resealable bags
Sydney Criminal Lawyers® has an excellent track record of having drug supply charges withdrawn, by providing detailed submissions of the deficiencies in the prosecution’s case.
We also have a proven success rate of obtaining not guilty verdicts for our clients in drug supply cases.