A 23-year-old man who sold pills from a bag in the Lonnies Niteclub in 2018 was sentenced in Supreme Court in Launceston to 84 hours of community service and a two-year Community Correction Order.
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Dylan Traill-Barwick, of Launceston, pleaded guilty last week to a count of trafficking in a controlled substance, namely MDA between June 21 and July 21, 2018.
He also pleaded guilty to using a controlled substance.
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Justice Robert Pearce said in sentencing that it was his impression that Traill-Barwick was not entirely sorry and did not fully appreciate the seriousness of the crime.
He said Traill-Barwick was ejected from the nightclub after security staff saw him with a ziplock bag.
Police found 33 capsules of MDA weighing 8.3grams and two grams of powder MDA.
They seized a mobile phone which indicated that he was owed $980 from sales to nine people.
He was carrying $580 in cash.
The court heard that Traill-Barwick believed the substance was MDMA.
"It could have contained anything," Justice Pearce said.
"Drugs like MDA have the potential to cause serious harm."
"The scale and nature of the selling does not warrant an immediate jail sentence," he said.
He ordered that Traill-Barwick be subject to a Community Correction Order for 24 months.
The court heard last week that Traill-Barwick initially claimed that he had found the bag on the floor of the nightclub and sold a few pills after word got around.
Justice Pearce ordered that Traill-Barwick pay the $2310 cost of chemical analysis of the pills despite a submission from defence counsel James Oxley that the analysis had been unnecessary because Traill-Barwick had pleaded guilty in the Launceston Magistrates Court before the analysis was done.
"I do not agree, there is a real public interest in there being an accurate identification of the substance relevant to the charge," he said.