Overview

Sydney Drug Offence Lawyers

Nyman Gibson Miralis are specialists in criminal law and drug law. Our experienced drug offence lawyers can advise you on every aspect of criminal prosecution for any type of drug matter including the penalties, arrest process, legality of search, use of sniffer dogs and your legal rights.

Our firm is among the most prominent criminal law firms in Sydney, offering the services of New South Wales’ best drug lawyers. It was a decision involving this firm’s representation of a client involving a sniffer dog that resulted in the legislation being changed to restrict police randomly using dogs.

 

Drug Possession Charges

The most common charge we see as drug defence lawyers is for drug possession, however we also represent people charged with other offences include driving with drugs, failing drug swab testing or the saliva drug test which is a relatively new random drug test.

All drug offences potentially carry a gaol sentence. Usually though, it is people caught with drugs other than for their personal use that will find themselves in serious trouble. The Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act sets out the penalties for all State drug offences including personal possession and supply of small quantity, trafficable quantity, indictable quantity, commercial quantity and large commercial quantity of the many different types of drugs and narcotics.

Our drug possession lawyers in Sydney are experienced in defending all types of drug possession charges.

 

Drug Driver Testing

New drug testing laws for drivers involve the use of saliva drug testing essentially to detect if the driver is a recent drug user, whether or not if affects their operation of a motor car. Our firm can assist you with these charges offering the expertise of our Sydney drug driving lawyers who have extensive knowledge of the law and have dealt with countless cases in drug possession.

 

Drug importation and Manufacture

Drug importation and drug manufacture receive a lot of media attention. Ecstasy for example is a drug that is imported into Australia as well as made locally in clandestine laboratories where quantities of chemicals are mixed, heated and extracted to produce an illegal drug. Meth (or ice) also falls into this category.

 

Police Drug Sting Operations (Entrapment)

Undercover police ‘legally’ buy and sell illegal drugs in order to catch drug suppliers (if authorized by a controlled operation) sometimes using marked money. Police use technology that includes listening devices, telephone intercepts, bugs or bugging devices, electronic surveillance, and physical surveillance to track down suppliers. For this purpose we provide specialist drug trafficking lawyers, who are experienced and confident in assisting you with these charges.

 

Asset and Property Seizure

People caught in possession of drugs or drug dealing may also find their property the subject of assets forfeiture orders, property restraint orders and the like under the Criminal Assets Recovery Act. You do not have to be convicted or even charged with a criminal offence to fall within this legislation.

 

How can our Sydney Drug Lawyers assist you?

If you are in trouble for a drug offence, regardless of the scale you need the knowledge of one of our expert drug offence lawyers. Our drug lawyers are located in Sydney, but we travel to courts throughout NSW. View the courts that we attend. Drug offences carry the prospect of a criminal conviction or worse still, prison. That’s why we are dedicated to getting you the best result for your case.

We might even be able to assist you in avoiding a conviction with a Section 10.

Case Studies

Drug Offence Charges Case Studies

FAQs

Drug Charges FAQs

What is the Definition of Drug Supply?

Supply includes to sell, barter, distribute, agree to supply, offer to supply, keep or have in possession for supply, or to send, forward, deliver or receive for supply, or authorize, direct, cause, suffer, permit or attempting any of those acts or things. The definition is set out in Section 3 of the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act.

What is Deemed Supply of a Prohibited Drug?

A person who has in their possession more than the traffickible quantity of drug is ‘deemed’ to have the drugs for the purpose of supply unless they prove that such possession was not for the purpose of supply.

Defending a Deemed Supply Charge

The traffickible quantity of a prohibited drug is sometimes ‘not very much’ and often no more than the person in possession would use for themselves. The most obvious example is for ecstasy. Possession of more than 0.75g of ecstasy normally involves possession of more than 2 tablets. Many ecstasy users will either use more than 3 tablets, or buy in bulk of 5 or more tablets because it is cheaper to do so. They do not necessarily realize that the law deems them to be a supplier. Many criminal defence lawyers would argue that the traffickible quantity of this drug is set at an unrealistically low level.

Quite often a person charged with supply prohibited drug under the deeming provisions of the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act will be allowed to plead guilty to Drug Possession instead of supply.

In determining whether to accept a plea to possess prohibited drug instead of supply, the prosecution will look to determine whether there were any other indicia of supply – such as lists containing names and amounts; resealable plastic bags, scales, the amount of drugs located, money, telephone messages (SMS) as well as the circumstances under which the person came under notice of police.

If there is no substantial indicia of supply, and provided there is not a significant quantity of the drug, or a previous conviction for supply perhaps, the prosecution will often consider taking a plea to possession.

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