JUDGE'S HEROIN WARNING

A County Court judge yesterday issued a grim warning about dangers of
heroin addiction as he jailed a 39-year-old mother of four for drug
trafficking while on a suspended sentence for the same offence.

Judge John Nixon yesterday sentenced Thi Ghet Tran to three years' jail
with a minimum non-parole period of 20 months.

Judge Nixon said Tran was essentially a courier in the trafficking
operation. But he said a suspended sentence, as proposed by her counsel,
would not convey the court's denunciation of the crime.

"It is a pernicious and evil drug, heroin, in which you trafficked. The
evil and destabilising problem of drug addiction is ... particularly so
when heroin is involved with its attendant misery, degradation, human
devastation and, on far too many occasions, death," Judge Nixon said.

The judge said the drug problem was of massive proportions with heroin
trafficking causing "shattered bodies as well as shattered minds".

Tran, formerly of Racecourse Road, Flemington, pleaded guilty to one count
of trafficking in a drug of dependency on 15 July 1998.

Tran was caught in possession of 3.04 grams - of 50 per cent purity - and
$11,000 outside where she lived. When police searched her apartment they
discovered keys to another flat where she and her boyfriend rented a room.
In that room, several plastic bags containing 44.6 grams of heroin were
found as well as $3300.

Judge Nixon said Tran's role was to deliver one gram packages of heroin.
She would carry several drug parcels and, when she sold out, would go to
the rented room to collect supplies.