Drugs Adviser In Prison For Dealing

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday July 2, 1999

By JACKIE DENT and AAP

Marion Watson, who was given an Order of Australia Medal for service to community health last year, was jailed yesterday for heroin dealing.

Watson had helped establish needle exchange programs in Canberra and a detoxification residential centre.

As a former addict, her advice to all levels of government about heroin addiction was seen as invaluable.

Watson, 47, from the Canberra suburb of Campbell, was sentenced to four years in jail with a two-year non-parole period.

She had pleaded guilty to four charges relating to possession and supply of heroin after police found the drug and $1,330 in cash in her hire car on Christmas Eve last year. Watson told police she had worked the day shift for a drug dealer known as "George" for about four months, to support a $480 a day habit.

ACT Supreme Court Chief Justice Jeffrey Miles said Watson was part of an organised and sophisticated drug ring. He said what Watson had done was "a cynical manipulation of her knowledge and familiarity of the drug network in Canberra which she acquired over many years".

He said only an immediate sentence of imprisonment could reflect the general abhorrence of trafficking in heroin.

Watson, who had been off heroin for 16 years, said she returned to the drug because of personal problems.

She was unemployed after leaving her job as director of the Assisting Drug Dependants Centre in 1994, and her father died. She was on bail before sentencing, looking after her teenage children and her mother.

The chief executive officer of the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia, Mr David Crosbie, said he was saddened by Watson's conviction as she had paid a huge price in being so open about her drug habit.

"Marion actually was committed to improving the quality of services and programs available to people that had drug problems," he said.