Operation Entrapment?

A friend of mine has a court case upcoming. Known to the authorities as having a history of drug abuse and 'anti-social' behaviour, one evening in Brighton he was approached by a young lady, sweating, desperately asking him if he could supply her with a small bag of heroin. Having suffered much of his life with withdrawal symptoms from the drug he managed to obtain her a small bag of it from a friend. He maintains he took no money for it, but did it 'as a favour' because the lady who approached him seemed desperate. Withdrawal symptoms from heroin, as anyone with a bit of knowledge about the drug would know, include sweating, nausea, mania, running nose, itchiness, diarrohea and more. Withdrawl symptoms from methadone are similarly horrendous.

It turned out that the lady in question was an undercover police officer who works in the police laboratories. She had taken a 'blocker' so that drugs she took had no effect on her, but still she smoked the drugs she was given. The friend in question was filmed as he did this and is now awaiting trial for which he could get a maximum of 3 years in jail. Now in jail, awaiting bail, he maintains that although he was 'stupid' to give the lady the drugs, he can't help feeling as if he was the victim of entrapment by the police. He says he knows 30 other people who are now in jail because of the police entrapment operation. Apparently it is called Operation Georgia.

My friend is a recovering drug user, not a recovering drug dealer. He has a history of addiction, institutionalisation and homelessness. The irony is that the people banged up as a result of Operation Georgia are not dealers but, by and large, vulnerable drug users with a history of addiction and illness. My friend knows what he did was wrong, but he was set up in a deliberate method of entrapment by the police, who used some pretty underhand tactics to level the charge of 'supply' to my friend, who could now get 3 years in prison. The irony is that the drug dealers themselves don't appear to be the target of the police operation, but instead the drug users who are seen as a problem. I asked him whether the dealer was given a sentence also. He said, he found it odd, but no, whoever it was who gave the drug to him didn't receive a sentence.

I think this police operation stinks to high heaven, because, in the process of trying to pin the charge of the supply of drugs on those with addiction, they are actually putting temptation in their path, using a vulnerable looking woman with all the outward signs of withdrawal and then slamming the addicts who have been conned into HMP. The same person has an ASBO, so even if he is released from jail in a while, he will still be unable to walk freely around Brighton. He says prison life is appalling, with a toilet only a yard from his pillow. He has no money, no giro, tobacco and feels like he has been set up by the police who only really wanted rid of him. Say a prayer for him.