The Threshold You Cannot Know

The finding

In most countries, the line between a fine and a long prison sentence is not a number a person can look up.

We read the primary drug statutes of five jurisdictions. In only one of them can the person carrying the drugs know, before they are arrested, which side of the line they are on.

This matters because almost every published guide to drug law abroad describes penalties as though they follow from a quantity. For three of these five countries, that is not how the law works.

Singapore: the exception

Singapore publishes exact figures.

Under section 17 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, possession above a stated weight creates a legal presumption that the drugs were for trafficking. The figures are specific: 2 grams of diamorphine, 3 grams of cocaine, 3 grams of morphine, 25 grams of methamphetamine, 15 grams of cannabis, 10 grams of MDMA-type compounds.

Above a second and higher set of weights, the death penalty is prescribed. The High Court has stated the diamorphine figure in its own words:

“By virtue of s 33(1) of the MDA read with the Second Schedule to the MDA, the punishment prescribed for possessing more than 15g of diamorphine for the purpose of trafficking under s 5(1)(a) read with s 5(2) of the MDA is death.”

[2018] SGHC 82

A person with a set of scales can determine which side of that line they are on. Whatever else is said about Singapore’s drug laws, the thresholds are published, numeric, and knowable.

Ireland: the threshold is a price somebody else estimates

Ireland’s severe-sentencing provision is section 15A of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977, inserted by section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1999. It applies where:

“at any time while the drug or drugs are in the person’s possession the market value of the controlled drug or the aggregate of the market values of the controlled drugs, as the case may be, amounts to £10,000 or more.”

That figure was later substituted to €13,000.

“Market value” is defined in the same section:

“‘market value’, in relation to a controlled drug, means the price that drug could be expected to fetch on the market for the unlawful sale or supply of controlled drugs”

It is a street price. Not a weight, not a purity, not a published figure. The same quantity crosses or does not cross the line depending on what it would fetch.

And the price is established by a police officer’s evidence. Section 15A(3) entitles a member of the Garda Síochána or a customs officer with knowledge of the unlawful trade to give evidence as to the market value.

The prosecution does not have to prove the accused knew. In DPP v Power, the Court of Criminal Appeal held it was not necessary to prove the accused knew or ought to have known the market value.

Two further Irish provisions worth knowing

The presumption of intent to supply has no threshold at all. Section 15(2) provides that a court may presume possession for supply having regard to the quantity “or to such other matter as the court considers relevant.” There is no figure. It is judicial discretion.

And the ten-year minimum is not what most readers assume. Research covering 79 judicial decisions found that in 67% of section 15A and 15B sentences surveyed, the presumptive minimum of ten years or more was not imposed, despite being popularly described as a mandatory minimum.

New Zealand: a band, not a number

New Zealand sets maximum penalties by drug class under section 6 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975: life imprisonment for Class A, up to fourteen years for Class B, up to eight years otherwise.

But the sentence actually imposed is set by sentencing bands developed by the appellate courts, which weigh quantity alongside the offender’s role and culpability. The quantity is one input. The band is a judicial assessment.

The consequence for a reader is direct: a quantity figure from one New Zealand case does not predict the outcome of another.

The Philippines: no threshold exists

Section 5 of Republic Act 9165 covers the sale, trading, delivery, distribution or transport of dangerous drugs. Its penalty clause contains six words that make the rest of this report’s question moot:

“shall be imposed upon any person, who, unless authorized by law, shall sell, trade, administer, dispense, deliver, give away to another, distribute, dispatch in transit or transport any dangerous drug … regardless of the quantity and purity involved”

One gram and one kilogram carry the same statutory penalty. Section 4, importation, is worded identically.

Only section 11, simple possession, is quantity-graded.

And a definition that catches people out

The Act defines “sell” as including “any act of giving away any dangerous drug whether for money or any other consideration.”

Giving a drug to a friend for free is a section 5 offence.

Ireland’s Act contains the same trap in two words. Section 1(1): “‘supply’ includes giving without payment.”

Why this matters

Guides to drug law abroad, including those published by governments, generally describe penalties as severe and leave it there. Where they give detail, they usually give a quantity.

For most of the countries we examined, a quantity is not the operative fact. It is a price, or a judicial band, or nothing at all.

That has three consequences worth stating plainly:

A traveller cannot self-assess. In Ireland, New Zealand and the Philippines there is no figure to check against.

Comparisons between countries mislead.“Ten grams” means something specific in Singapore and almost nothing in Manila.

Statutes alone cannot answer the question people actually ask. Where the threshold is a price somebody else estimates, or a band a judge chooses, only the record of actual prosecutions shows what happens to people.

2cb.com publishes drug law for 224 jurisdictions and verified court records where lawful sources permit. Our methodology and editorial standards are public.