EQUAL JUSTICE

Defence lawyers have, unsurprisingly, questioned the heavy fines being
meted out to cruise ship visitors caught with illegal drugs in their cabins.

It is natural for the defence bar to question this because it is their job
to try to get the lowest possible sentences for the people they represent.

In this case, they have a point.

Bermuda, rightly, has strict drugs laws. It neither needs nor wants a
reputation as a place where drugs are easily bought and consumed by
visitors or residents. And the devastation wrought by drug abuse is known
to every family on the Island.

But justice needs to be even-handed and in the case of visitors to the
Island caught with small amounts of drugs it is not being administered in a
fair handed way.

Bermuda residents caught for the first time with small amounts of drugs for
their personal use would face fines in the low hundreds of dollars or, more
likely these days, a referral to drugs court and a period of rehabilitation.

Visitors, because they have "imported" drugs, are fined $1,000 each, in
spite of the fact that the drugs, imported or not, are for their own use.
They claim, with some justice, that they are not adequately warned about
how seriously the crime is viewed in Bermuda.

In addition, people caught with heroin and cocaine which are unquestionably
more dangerous drugs than cannabis, receive the same fines.

Government needs to consider a more even-handed policy.