Drug find after police visit

ECSTASY and cocaine were found at a Glenorchy house after a police officer, who went there to talk to one of the occupants about traffic matters, smelt cannabis emanating from the house, a court has heard.

Alexander Brett White, 30, was one of four people living at the house in April last year when police arrived and subsequently searched the house.

White pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court in Hobart yesterday to two counts of trafficking in a controlled substance, namely ecstasy and cocaine, between December 25, 2017, and April 23 last year.

Crown prosecutor Anna Norton told the court police found 824 ecstasy tablets, 10 MDA — a metabolite of ecstasy — tablets, 37.6g of a mixture of ecstasy tablets, tablet fragments and powder, 38.5g of cocaine and 0.3g of cannabis.

Of those drugs, 809 ecstasy tablets and 37g of cocaine were among the drugs found in White’s bedroom.

Ms Norton said it was estimated the ecstasy had the potential to yield between $5660 and $24,720, depending on the quantities it was sold in, and it was estimated the cocaine could have yielded between $7600 and $15,400.

White’s lawyer Garth Stevens told the court his client developed post-traumatic stress disorder after he was badly assaulted in June 2015.

Mr Stevens said White moved into the Glenorchy house, where three other drug users were living, and used alcohol and drugs to deal with the symptoms of his post-traumatic stress disorder.

He said White’s life after the assault “went to rack and ruin”.

“He became dependant on Centrelink benefits, he had a heavy drug use habit,” Mr Stevens said. He told the court White and his housemates would chip in to buy drugs in bulk and some would choose to onsell some of the drugs.

“He saw at the point of arrest what his life had come to,” Mr Stevens said.

He said White had since taken steps towards rehabilitation, had disassociated with the drug users he was previously friends with, had re-engaged with his family and with a group of friends who were not drug users.

Mr Stevens also said White was planning to return to work and the likelihood he would reoffend was low.

Mr Stevens said other people involved in buying drugs with White had been charged with the less serious crime of selling drugs. Acting Justice David Porter adjourned the case and is expected to sentence White, whose bail was continued, next week.