LAW MAKES AN ASS OF ITSELF

There surely has to be a distinction drawn between someone who uses drugs
for their own personal consumption and someone who gives them to other
people, comment the Manawatu Standard in an editorial.

But if there is then it has been well and truly blurred in the case of
one-time television newsreader Darren McDonald, who received the judicial
equivalent of a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket when he was
sentenced on charges relating to the supply of methamphetamine and Ecstasy.
Small wonder McDonald smiled as he left court - he had plenty to be happy
about after hearing his eight-month jail sentence would be deferred on
account of his high profile and because drugs are to be found in our
prisons.

It would be hard to find two more cock-eyed reasons for such extraordinary
leniency to be extended to a drug peddler.

Of course there are drugs in our prisons.

It would be more surprising if there weren't.

But what on earth has that to do with whether someone ought to be sent to
prison?

As for McDonald's supposed celebrity status - that will come as a surprise
to most people who at best might think there was something vaguely familiar
about the face but beyond that, are hardly likely to do handstands. More
serious is the kind of message this sort of judicial nonsense is sending to
the community at large.

Plenty of people - rightly or wrongly - already believe that money helps if
you're in trouble with the law. Now, it seems you can add "celebrity" status
and drug addiction to the mix.

McDonald's offending may not have been at the top of the scale, but that's
hardly the point.

What does matter is that the country is in the grip of a P epidemic which is
doing untold damage to the fabric of our society and here is a man who
confesses to conspiring to supply it and he doesn't even get to do jail
time. Nobody is suggesting McDonald should be made an example of because
that would be to use his erstwhile celebrity status for the wrong reasons as
well. And it is true that his life and career are now in tatters anyway.

But none of this should detract from the gravity of the matter.

If he is judged to be at risk in prison because he is well-known or an
addict, then surely that is a case for our prisons to be reformed, not for
someone to dodge imprisonment.

Anyone who throws away their opportunities in life through addiction,
whether to drugs, gambling, alcohol, or any other form of compulsive
behaviour, is to be pitied and ought to be helped.

But by the same token anyone who draws other people into their habit should
be punished as well because they are damaging more than themselves.

As things stand with the McDonald sentencing, which will almost certainly
see him serving his time at home, the public could be forgiven for now
believing that maybe peddling P isn't such a terrible thing to do after all.
Especially if you're a pleasant-looking middle-class white male who achieved
a modicum of fame through being able to follow an autocue in front of a
television camera.

Justice? If it is, it's a very peculiar kind of justice.

One more thing: What, with an MP driving a tractor up the steps of
Parliament and protesting mums whipping off their tops, these are exciting
times for Speaker Jonathan Hunt. But Parliament is, after all, first and
foremost the people's place, so Mr Hunt shouldn't be too surprised when such
things happen from time to time.