The Drug Law that Sends You to Jail for Helping

A disturbing new trend is emerging in Australia that I thought was only happening in the US. Anyone who supplies drugs for someone or helps them inject is being jailed if that someone dies from an overdose. This is not aimed at unscrupulous criminals who sell contaminated drugs but anyone including dealers, friends or fellow drug users who physically provide the drugs. Someone overdosing using too much heroin should not be the fault of the person supplying the drugs whether they are dealers or not. They are simply handing over a product for a buyer/user/friend who will obtain the product somewhere, regardless of where it comes from. What if it’s just two friends and one of them has been elected or volunteers to pool their money and purchase the drugs for both of them? According to the courts, it doesn’t matter and prison is a certainty.

I have trouble grasping this concept because it is singling out drug users. Not long ago, the courts dealt with someone trying to sue a bar owner who served drinks to an intoxicated man just a few hours before he had a fatal car accident. This raised the issue of responsible serving of alcohol and whether bartenders had an obligation to refuse alcohol to someone who is already intoxicated. Some countries and states have made it an offence to serve intoxicated patrons but one thing is for sure, they won’t being going to prison for 10-15 years.

One reoccurring issue that also worries me is how some users are being arrested for injecting someone who has asked for their help and then overdoses. I have been in this situation dozens of times where either myself or a friend needs help injecting. Not once has it ever entered my mind that you could be arrested if one of us overdosed and died. What sort of bizarre system punishes you for helping a fellow human to do something safely? Something they are going to attempt regardless of whether you help or not? If you have seen the movie, Requiem For A Dream, you will understand what can happen to your arm if it becomes infected from injecting. Here’s a hint ... it ain’t pleasant! Do you really just refuse a friend who needs help and risk them getting abscesses in their arm or even worse ... wasting the shot of heroin?

And lastly, today’s conspiracy theory. Are these laws designed to torment drug users? There’s very little logic involved and it only applies to drugs so someone, somewhere has made a conscious decision to write a law that can create turmoil between friends intravenously using drugs. Whatever reason was behind these laws, I cannot see one benefit. It will though increase deaths and harm, create tension between drug using friends and fuel the fear of prosecution that already prevents users from ringing an ambulance when someone overdoses.

Woman Jailed Over Fatal Heroin Sale

By ACT court reporter Katherine Pohl

ABC

Posted March 2010

A 32-year-old Canberra woman who sold a fatal dose of heroin to another user has been sentenced to six months in jail.

Melissa Anne Bennett from Rivett pleaded guilty to trafficking a controlled drug.

She sold nearly 2 grams of heroin to a woman in May 2008.

They injected half a gram together before the woman left.

The buyer was later found dead in a Watson hotel.

The ACT Magistrates Court heard Bennett has mental health issues but she has improved in recent times.

Magistrate Beth Campbell said supplying heroin can have horrendous consequences, as seen in this case.

But she acknowledged the death of the woman had weighed on the defendant's mind.

She sentenced her to 18 months in jail but that will be suspended after she serves six months.

Mckinney Woman Sentenced To 10 Years For Heroin-Injection Death Of Best Friend

By Ed Housewright

The Dallas Morning News

March 2010

MCKINNEY — A woman convicted of killing her best friend by injecting her with heroin was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison.

Kristin Metz, 29, had faced a possible life term in the 2008 murder of Stevie May. The lesser sentence resulted from an agreement between prosecutors and Metz’ defense team that was approved by state District Judge Ray Wheless. No witnesses testified during the punishment phase.

As part of the deal, the defense waived the right to appeal.

"It was a fair sentence," said lead prosecutor John Lee Schomburger. "There was not any intent to kill."

Defense attorney Tom D'Amore said he also was pleased with the sentence: "It was done...to avoid the risk to our client of a greater sentence."

A Collin County jury found her guilty Friday of causing May’s death by injecting her with heroin at her request.

The verdict in the unusual trial came moments before state District Judge Ray Wheless was about to send the panel home for the weekend. When the verdict was announced, May's mother, Kathleen May, sobbed openly in the courtroom.

A few feet away, Metz, 29, appeared calm. But she broke down in tears moments later as her attorney, Scott Palmer, sought to reassure her.

"How could they do this?" she pleaded. "How do I have any faith in justice?"

The case against Metz was considered a rarity because she was charged with murdering someone who authorities acknowledge was voluntarily committing the same criminal act: possession of heroin.

Evidence at the trial shows that at the behest of May, Metz purchased heroin from a Carrollton dealer so they both could use it back at the McKinney apartment Metz shared with her husband. But when May had trouble injecting herself, Metz — her best friend — did it for her, authorities say. The 21-year-old mother died inside Metz's apartment.

Body In Troy, Ill., Cemetery Was Heroin Overdose

By Terry Hillig

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

March 2010

TROY, ILL. — A man found dead in a cemetery in Troy this week suffered a heroin overdose during a drug binge with a longtime friend who has been charged in the incident, police said Thursday. 

The body of Chad Q. Bell, 29, of Troy, was found Tuesday in Friedens Cemetery, along Illinois Route 162 in that community.

His friend, Michael E. Bovinett, 36, also of Troy, was arrested Wednesday night and charged Thursday with drug-induced homicide, concealment of a homicidal death and obstructing justice, officials said.

Major Jeff Connor, deputy commander of the Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis, said the two men had used drugs together in the hours before Bell's death. 

According to the charges, Bovinett injected Bell with heroin, which killed him.

Prosecutors claim Bovinett concealed the death by leaving Bell's body in the cemetery, and lied to investigators about it.

Bovinett, of the 100 block of Wayland Street, was held in the Madison County Jail in Edwardsville in lieu of $1 million bail.

Connor declined to say where the men spent the hours before Bell's death, but he did say that heroin was becoming more prevalent.

"Heroin is becoming a very cheap drug, and it's easy to find," the detective said.

Bell was last seen alive about 9 p.m. Monday. Connor said it appeared he was already dead when Bovinett left the body at the cemetery.

Port Huron Woman Charged In Heroin Overdose Death

The Times Herald

March 2010

Shelly Lynn Campbell, 35, of Port Huron has been charged with providing the heroin that led to a Port Huron man’s overdose death.

Larry Thomas Sobczak Jr., 31, was found dead Jan 30 in his Pine Street apartment. The St. Clair County Medical Examiner’s office determined he died of a heroin overdose. Investigators believe Campbell provided Sobczak with the heroin.

She was arraigned Sunday and is being held on $10,000 bond. A preliminary exam on the charge of delivery of a controlled substance causing death is set for March 9.