Drug dealer Gympie mum busted selling meth and weed

Police were investigating a man they suspected of drug dealing, and caught the 44-year-old in the process.

A middle-aged Gympie mum was caught dealing meth and marijuana as police investigated another man.

A MIDDLE-AGED Gympie mother has been told she has “a longstanding problem with drug abuse” after being caught dealing meth and weed a number of times between last year and this year.

Leanne Margaret MacGregor, 44, was detected selling or attempting to sell various quantities of the two drugs on five occasions as police investigated someone else suspected of drug dealing, the Gympie District Court heard last week.

The woman was caught selling meth three times and planning to sell it another two.

Investigations of a man suspected of drug dealing led police to investigate his phone, and from there they found text messages involving MacGregor.

The messages revealed MacGregor had supplied drugs to him and had also made arrangements that ultimately didn’t go ahead, the court heard.

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One of MacGregor’s deals involved 7g of cannabis and 1.7g meth provided to the man for $430, another involved 2g of meth amounting to $320 and another totalling 1.75g of meth.

MacGregor arranged to sell an 8-ball of meth and ounce of cannabis on another occasion and a “very small amount” of meth on yet another, but those deals did not get done.

Judge Glen Cash acknowledged MacGregor’s timely guilty pleas to five charges of supplying or offering to supply a dangerous drug, one charge of possessing a bong and one charge of possessing a small quantity of dangerous drugs, but noted she was of “mature” age with a criminal history dating back “a fair way”.

Judge Cash warned of the “very serious” nature of MacGregor’s offending, and the impact it had on society.

“It’s clear that you have a longstanding problem with drug abuse. Even if you’re clean at the moment, it’s clear to me that you’re someone who, if you use drugs, you become addicted to them again,” he said.

“You don’t need me to give you a lecture … if you’ve been using for as long as it seems you have, you will have had friends who have killed themselves on ice, you will have had friends who have gone and committed robberies while on ice.

“You know first-hand, I’m sure, the harm that it causes to all of us in our society.”

MacGregor was given a head sentence of 18 months’ jail but was released immediately on parole, where she will have to undergo regular drug testing.

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