Home Office Cannabis Sentencing Biased Toward Immigrants?
http://cannazine.co.uk : A man from the North East of England has been jailed for 18 months after being caught smuggling a kilo of cannabis into the country.
For his crime, roofer David Bunney, 34, of High Street, Skelton, was locked up for 18 months at Teesside Crown Court after HM Customs officers intercepted Bunney as he disembarked from a ferry, inbound from Holland at the North Shields Ferry Terminal, in April 07.
When customs officers searched his suzuki van, two packages were found underneath the drivers seat and on closer inspection they were found to contain herbal cannabis weighing almost a kilo, said to be worth in the region of £5700.
An immigrant is led away from a 'cannabis factory', to who knows what fate, but "probably not" deportation
In the meantime and during the same period (April 15th 07) a Vietnamese man was convicted of growing cannabis plants in a South Wales rented property.
Asylum seeker Khan Van Nguyen, 24, of no fixed abode, was recruited at a London hotel and in a pre-meditated act, was sent to cultivate cannabis plants at a rented house in Brynhyfryd Road Newport, South Wales.
The court heard that officers called at the home and discovered Nguyen was cultivating 304 cannabis plants with a street value of £36,640, for which he was sentened to two years in prison
Judge Curran said he would recommend Nguyen be deported once released.
"If people like you were not prepared to run cannabis farms like this then people higher up the criminal chain would not be able to get away with it."
Fair comment Judge Curran, but if 1 kilo of cannabis, smuggled, (not manufactured) by a tax-paying indigenous member of the UK population is worth an 18 month prison sentence, how then, can an illegal immigrant, who contributes nothing to the national economy, and who is a prime mover in the manufacture of almost £36,000 worth of cannabis, which equates to somewhere in the region of 6 kilo's by weight, be sentenced to only 6 months longer?
Deportation? One could say that the threat of deportation at the end of Nguyen's sentence would be punishment enough. But will he actually be deported?
Probably not, according to the 'Border and Immigration Agency',
Under pressure - Home Secretary Jacqui Smith
an executive agency of the Home Office, which has constantly ignored the Prime Minister’s deportation 'edict' and told prison chiefs it has no interest in deporting foreign national prisoners serving sentences of under a year.
Under the terms of Nguyens sentence he is due to serve around 6-8 months in total which puts him firmly in this bracket. He may even be a free man today.
Under Pressure The refusal to process deportations will also likely cause further tension between the Prime Minister and Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, who is under pressure over the revelation that 11,000 illegal immigrants, double the number first claimed by the government, were wrongly given jobs in the security industry.
It was a failure to consider the deportation of more than 1,000 foreign national prisoners which triggered yet another crisis at the Home Office in 2006 and which ultimately led to the dismissal of Charles Clarke as Home Secretary.
The prisoners, from 110 countries included three murderers, five paedophiles and nine rapists.
A further seven had served time for 'other' sex offences, 57 for offences aggravated by violence, and two for manslaughter, so it seems the UK will let just about anyone in, house them, and pay them social security benefits!
Clearly an illegal alien has no issues whatsoever with having a criminal record in the United Kingdom as it has absolutely no bearing on his life.
In the meantime, the leaders of these organised crime rings - the people who the police fail time and again to convict, just set up another ten cannabis farms to cover the costs of the one or two the police accidently stumble upon.
Unnecessary Stigma? At the same time, tax-paying members of the British population are receiving excessive prison sentences for carrying out similar, or lesser crimes.
This will ultimately carry with it a stigma (some would say deserved if you choose to break the law) which will have a bearing on their future job prospects, as well as their ability to contribute further to society.
If we are going to continue to flog this particular dead horse, then lets at least see some consistency in how justice is meted out.
If thats not possible due to the obvious and apparent postcode lottery under which cannabis laws are enforced, then we simply have to change those laws.
Legislate. Regulate.
Its the only fair and just way to deal with an issue, which isn't going to go away, no matter what classification cannabis comes under.
Set up in February 2007, the Canna Zine is the first-in-the-world news agency dedicated to the global issues surrounding cannabis, hemp and illicit drugs in general. To post your press release, sign up for a free account on http://pr.cannazine.co.uk , post your news release, and the Canna Zine will do the rest.
Canna Zine - more 'evolution' than revolution! A new era in postitive response communications.
Latest News 
