Ecstasy-dealing father-to-be spared time behind bars for trafficking

A Launceston ecstasy dealer nabbed with 853 pills and nearly $9000 in drug money inside his bedside drawer has been told prison would “not be a just outcome”.

A LAUNCESTON father-to-be has avoided a stint in prison after police caught him with hundreds of MDA pills in snaplock bags and almost $9000 in drug money.

Dylan Mark Dennis Jenkins, 26, started using cannabis at age 16 before progressing onto “party drugs” such as ecstasy, the Supreme Court of Tasmania heard this week.

“Your use escalated. You then began to sell the drugs to fund your use, but also to supplement your income and supplement a gambling habit,” Justice Mark Pearce said.

“Your problems were exacerbated when you lost [your] job at [an] aluminium smelter due to a business turndown and the scale of the drug sales increased.”

In December 2017, police searched Jenkins’ home at Youngtown, finding 853 pills and $8890 in his bedside drawer.

He was arrested and pleaded guilty to trafficking in a controlled substance over an 18-month period between July 2016 and December 2017.

Justice Pearce said Jenkins was in a stable relationship, with his partner due to give birth to their first child in two months’ time, and that he was a “highly regarded” employee at his current workplace.

“With your arrest you ended your association with drugs, although it took you some time to achieve that,” he said.

“I think that there is every reason to consider that you can be a responsible member of the community, and actual imprisonment, and exposure to the corrupting influence of prison, is not a just outcome.”

Jenkins was given a one-year suspended jail sentence and ordered to forfeit the drugs and money to the state.

He was also ordered to pay $6450 to cover the cost of drug analysis.