What Are The Sentences for Supplying Morphine Illegally?

The Complexity of Sentencing for Supplying Morphine

Sentencing guidelines exist to guide a court when deciding on the appropriate punishment for most drug-related offences. The guidelines reference the most common drugs, such as cocaine and cannabis, but do not expressly cover drugs which are less commonly found in this type of offending. One such drug is morphine.

What are the considerations for an offence of supplying morphine?

The sentencing guideline states:

‘Where a drug (such as fentanyl or its agonists) is not listed in the table below, sentencers should expect to be provided with expert evidence to assist in determining the potency of the particular drug and in equating the quantity in the case with the quantities set out in the guidelines in terms of the harm caused. There will often be no precise calculation possible, but courts are reminded that in cases of particularly potent drugs, even very small quantities may be held to be equivalent to large quantities of the drugs listed.’

The use of morphine 

Expert opinion in relation to morphine suggests that:

(1) Morphine has powerful analgesic (pain relief) properties, but has to be used cautiously because it may cause depression of respiration (breathing), which may in some cases prove fatal.

(2) Morphine and other opioid drugs may cause pulmonary oedema (secretion of fluid into the lungs), which may be observable as froth at the nose and mouth (“foam cone”).

(3) Morphine is especially toxic in people who have not taken it recently, i.e. have no pharmacological tolerance to the drug.

(4) Morphine and other opioid drugs such as methadone are also especially toxic at night, when respiration is naturally depressed.

(5) As well as being used as a drug in its own right, Morphine is also the principal plasma metabolite of the drug diamorphine (also known as diacetylmorphine), which in turn is the principal constituent of heroin.

Drawing a comparison for guidance

Given that morphine is the principal plasma metabolite of diamorphine, which is the chief constituent of heroin. It would therefore be legitimate for a judge to use the indicative weights of heroin as a guide to the categorisation of harm.

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