A loophole in South Australia's drug laws that could have seen serious criminals charged with lesser offences has been closed.
Under the previous laws, people who trafficked large quantities of a drug in its pure form could only be charged with a basic trafficking offence, which carried a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
The peculiar loophole came under the spotlight after the SA Supreme Court overturned the convictions of an Adelaide couple who had been found guilty of trafficking 200 litres of a drug known as "fantasy".
The decision came after the court found there was no specification in the Controlled Substances Act for what constituted a commercial quantity of a drug in its pure form.
Yesterday, the state government introduced an amendment bill to close that loophole, which sailed through both houses of parliament.
Attorney-General Kyam Maher said the government wanted to send a "very, very clear message" to drug traffickers.
"Two-hundred litres of pure fantasy is a huge amount that will cause huge harm in the community," he said.
"If anyone thought they'd get a lighter sentence because of this Supreme Court decision, you won't."
Mr Maher said the law would be applied retrospectively.
"That means for anyone who's before the courts, anyone who's committed offences in the past, will not be able to use this loophole," he said.
"They will face the potential of life in prison for trafficking a pure form of drugs in a large commercial quantity."
Limited consultation a 'necessity'
The attorney-general conceded limited consultation had been carried out with the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) before the bill was introduced.
"We didn't want a situation where we had defence lawyers and their clients lining up for sentencing to take advantage of this loophole, so we moved very quickly and by necessity there was very limited consultation," he said.
"We won't apologise for the speed with which this was done."
He also defended the retrospective nature of the law.
"It is an unusual step to take to make criminal laws retrospective, but what we were doing was restoring the laws to how lawyers, the courts, the DPP, understood them to apply before the Supreme Court decision," he said.
Meanwhile, new laws targeting murderers and those that help them hide or defile bodies were also passed by state parliament.
Until now, there have been no specific offences in South Australia that prohibit a person from concealing or interfering with human remains.
It comes as SA Police continues its investigation into the suspected drug overdose murders of three men in Adelaide's southern suburbs, linked to the methamphetamine scene.
