Man blows $320K on drug use

‘Poster boy’ why drug dealers fail

A 31-YEAR-OLD man who blew a $320,000 compensation payout on drugs and resorted to trafficking to support his own habit has been jailed.

Zane Daniel Lindsay was “surely the poster boy as to why drug dealing” was foolish, Justice Peter Applegarth said.

The then 30-year-old had been riding a bicycle in Stanthorpe on December 30 last year when police went to arrest him on a return to prison warrant, prompting him to throw away his backpack, Toowoomba Supreme Court heard.

A couple of days later, a resident had found the backpack in his yard and took it to police.

Inside the backpack was Lindsay’s mobile phone, a drug “tick sheet” of names, 2g of cannabis, $50 in cash, 1.5g of meth, prescription drugs, a used syringe and digital scales, collectively described by Justice Applegarth as “the tools of trade of a drug dealer”.

Crown prosecutor Alysha Ballantyne said a search of his phone found Lindsay had trafficked cannabis and meth over 12 days from December 19, last year, which included 28 drug related transactions at a street level.

At the time of the trafficking Lindsay was subject to parole, she said.

His barrister David Jones said his client on turning 18 had received the $320,000 compensation payout for injuries sustained in a traffic crash which he had subsequently blown on drugs.

His client had been working at an abattoir in Warwick but had lost that job when he failed a drug test, he said.

The father of two pleaded guilty to trafficking and associated charges.

Noting Linday had spent 231 days in pre-sentence custody, Justice Applegarth sentenced him to three and a half years in jail but ordered he be eligible to apply for release on parole from April 13 next year after having served a third of the head sentence.