A friend in Qld was ordering AM2201 last year when it was still legal. However customs had obviously been made aware of its 'threat to the community' and was holding parcels indefinitely. Part of the game of importing was to just keep ordering and to play the numbers game [ie let them have a certain percentage of parcels]. To do this different addresses needed to be used everytime a parcel got seized. Eventually my friend ran out of PO boxes so he used his home address. Eventually this was also compromised and he stopped. By this time 3 parcel were being held by customs. He had ordered his last 1kg of AM2201 in June. It was held by customs. After 2 months the postal tracking stopped as is normal. 2201 was still legal then. On sept 6th 3 cannabinoid agonists became illegal in Qld. AM2201 was NOT one of them but as I have stated publically, it is an analogue of the 3 scheduled ones [something that was widely argued to be a wrong assumption, but was later proven in court when people got busted for it].
Early november my friend gets a post notification that a parcel has arrived. The parcel that was sent to his home address had been released by customs 3 days earlier. he had forgotten all about it as he had assumed it would be seized and destroyed after being made illegal. Being unaware of what the parcel was he picked it up from the PO which is when he realised what it actually was. This is where things got complicated. My friend made the parcel disappear. Not that he actually wanted to have this stuff, but he knew that he could be arrested for handing it into the cops. That same day I was visiting him and after hanging out for a while I dropped him back at his place and went back home to NSW. Later that night my friend rings me to tell me he had been raided and arrested and that the cops assumed I had the parcel in NSW because his txt record showed we had met up. For a number of reasons he could not tell them what he had actually done with it. I wrote a sign for my door that stated "Dear NSW Police. Please don't break down the door, we have cookies and coffee waiting for you".
After getting some legal advice which confirmed that handing the parcel to the cops is risky as they can arrest the person holding the parcel even if arrangements had been made and guarantees were given, it was decided to wait a few days. This was because my friend had actually mailed the parcel to another state where AM2201 was still legal at the time. However being a weekend it took 4 days for the tracking to show that the parcel was at its destination. While we were twiddling our thumbs and getting up at 5 am every morning expecting a visit, the Qld cops were ringing my friend every day to try and get the parcel back. He had been charged with possession of 1.6million dollars worth of drugs. In Qld it is not the quantity, but the value that determines charge and sentence.
It was 2 weeks before schoolies, a time when the Qld drug cops go completely nuts because the government is on their ass and they need to show results [ie headlines]. So here they were very happily looking at a 1.6 million dollar drug seizure that would make for great news headlines, if it weren't for the fact they'd lost the actual drugs. See, they could only charge him with possession because the import was actually not illegal, but for possession they need to prove intent and knowledge, neither of which would have stuck from a simple pick up CCTV video at the post office. That's why they needed to catch him the next day with the drugs still in his possession. After midnight they can add a new charge for every day that they can prove possession. So essentially my friend was set up.
Once we had confirmed the parcel to be in the state where it was still legal our solicitors contacted the cops and suggested that we would surrender the drugs, but that they had to make it 'attractive' to my friend. Keeping in mind that the cops still thought I had the parcel in NSW. It was round about then that it surfaced that the Qld cops had asked the NSW cops about the legality of AM2201 and had been told it is not illegal in NSW. THAT'S why the NSW cops hadn't raided me! Kinda hilarious cos that information was actually wrong. AM2201 is smack bang covered under the analogues clause in NSW - no doubt about it. But it gets better.
They kept going on about how the kilo represented 1.6 million dollars worth of drugs in the community and how it was imperative that they retrieve it, but they would not drop the charges. With nothing to lose at this point I suggested that maybe we should hint at how badly this could be perceived in the public eye [ie a roundabout way of saying 'I wonder how the media would take 1.6million dollars worth of drugs going missing in a botched operation 2 weeks before schoolies']. 20 mins later we had a deal that the charges would be dropped if we surrendered the parcel. At this point they were still expecting that i would be taking the parcel to the NSW/QLD border for them to pick up. I would have loved to have seen their faces when they were told the parcel is in Victoria
The drug squad was VERY keen to retrieve the parcel even once they knew it was in Victoria and after some negotiations our solicitor managed to make arrangements for surrender that did not bring any risk to any of us. This turned into another comedy though as the Qld cops now got it into their heads that AM2201 was illegal in Victoria and hence they would have to get a Vic drug squad agent to do the pick up etc. My solicitor got quite freaked out and it took me some hours to convince him that the Qld cops had it wrong AGAIN. Good thing is that solicitors can read legal texts so eventually he just had to believe the evidence I presented to him about the legality.
The hand over did not go smoothly either. Seems the Vic cops worked out it was not illegal and hence couldn't be bothered to be involved. Hours passed, but eventually the solicitor got rid of the parcel.
The charges got dropped and I've been advised to keep out of Qld cops' way for a few years ;)
A few lessons were learnt here:
1) No one knows what's actually legal or illegal, yet decisions get made in this vacuum.
2) Customs will release an item that is legal under the customs act even if it is illegal under state law, but will inform state authorities of the release so they can raid and prosecute. This seems like entrapment to me, but my solicitor assures me it is all legal.
3) Surrendering illegal items can get you busted.
4) if you've already been charged make sure to surrender it before midnight so you don't get charged again.
