Under the Queensland Drugs Misuse Act 1986, a sentencing judge is not permitted to distinguish between steroids and other Schedule 1 drugs such as methamphetamine for sentencing purposes, given the 2014 legislative amendments which intended penalties for steroid offences to be similar to those for other Schedule 1 drugs. More broadly, it will rarely if ever be possible for a sentencing judge to assess the relative harmfulness of drugs within the same schedule. The observation in R v Dowel that non-custodial sentences for trafficking 'tend to be imposed only in exceptional circumstances' is a description of sentencing trends, not a rule requiring exceptional circumstances to be demonstrated.
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