1 The Misuse of Drugs Act (“MDA”) was enacted in 1973 to address the growing issue of drug abuse in Singapore. In this regard, Parliament differentiated between drug traffickers and drug addicts. The provision for far heavier penalties in relation to the former was a central part of the legislative design: Ali bin Mohamad Bahashwan v Public Prosecutor [2018] 1 SLR 610 at [64]. Parliament’s intention was to target those involved in the dissemination of drugs in society with the “strictest enforcement” coupled with “the severest of penalties”: Ramesh a/l Perumal v Public Prosecutor and another appeal [2019] 1 SLR 1003 (“Ramesh Perumal”) at [108]-[109]; Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (12 November 2012) vol 89, Mr Teo Chee Hean, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs. Those who moved drugs towards third parties, and eventually end users, along the supply and distribution chain could expect to face the full brunt of the law, including mandatory minimum punishments and caning.

2 Whether the accused, Naufal Muzzammil s/o Jamal Mohamed, was a trafficker or a pure consumer was precisely the contention in the present case. In this regard, the accused claimed trial to a single charge for the trafficking of cannabis mixture:

3 The accused’s primary argument at trial was that he was not “trafficking” in the drugs by selling them to Vasu. Instead, he contended that he was merely "sharing" the drugs that he had obtained from his supplier with Vasu, or alternatively, "returning" the drugs that Vasu had ordered from him.

4 After carefully considering the evidence adduced during the trial and the submissions of both parties, I found that the Prosecution had proven the charge against the accused beyond a reasonable doubt and convicted the accused of the trafficking charge accordingly. Specifically, I found that the accused had sold the drugs to Vasu and rejected his defence that he was merely “sharing” the drugs or “returning” the drugs to Vasu.

5 After the conviction, the Prosecution proceeded on one out of three stood down charges for consumption of a specified drug, and applied to take the other two charges (possession of a controlled drug and possession of drug utensils) into consideration for the purpose of sentencing. The accused elected to plead guilty to the proceeded charge. I sentenced the accused on the charges as follows:

(a) For DAC-917247-2022 (trafficking in a controlled drug): five years’ and three months’ imprisonment and five strokes of the cane. This was only slightly higher than the mandatory minimum of five years’ imprisonment and five strokes of the cane.

(b) For DAC-916398-2023 (consumption of a specified drug): the mandatory minimum sentence of one year’s imprisonment.

6 I also ordered the sentences in DAC-917247-2022 and DAC-916398-2023 to run concurrently, to ensure that the overall sentence was not crushing on the accused, and was in keeping with his past record and his future prospects. The global sentence imposed was five years’ and three months’ imprisonment and five strokes of the cane.

7 The accused filed an appeal against conviction and sentence. The Defence applied for, and I granted, a stay of execution on his imprisonment term and caning.

8 When I delivered the verdict and sentence, I provided my oral grounds. These are the full reasons for my decision.

9 The relevant provisions of the MDA are as follows:

10 Section 2 of the MDA defines “traffic” as follows:

11 Pursuant to s 33(1) read with the Second Schedule to the MDA, the minimum punishment for trafficking in not less than 5.29g of cannabis mixture is five years’ imprisonment and five strokes of the cane, and the maximum punishment is 20 years’ imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane.

12 There were two elements that the Prosecution had to prove in the trafficking charge (see Public Prosecutor v Ranjit Singh Gill Menjeet Singh and another [2017] 3 SLR 66 at [34]):

(a) the act of trafficking in the controlled drug which was not authorised, ie, by selling; and

(b) knowledge of the nature of the drug.

13 The trial took place over three days. The Prosecution called two witnesses – Vasu, the alleged buyer listed in the trafficking charge, and IO Joel Ong Yeow Hian (“IO Ong”), the Investigation Officer in the case who recorded the accused’s statements.

14 The accused elected to testify in his defence, and did not call any other witnesses in his defence.

15 The facts in this case were essentially undisputed, either through the Agreed Statement of Facts pursuant to s 267(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code 2010 (“CPC”), or in the course of trial. All the documentary and physical exhibits, including the certificates by the Health Sciences Authority (“HSA”), the accused’s statements, phone forensics, screenshots of police camera footage and the drug exhibit, were admitted by consent.

16 Vasu first met the accused sometime at the beginning of 2022 when they were introduced by mutual friends. They also worked together at a swabbing centre ¹ during the Covid-19 pandemic. Vasu obtained cannabis from the accused about five to six times between mid-2022 and 6 November 2022. He paid the accused for the cannabis each time and received the cannabis from the accused in return. ²

17 A few days before 2 November 2022, Vasu informed the accused that he would like to obtain about 10g of cannabis. ³ Vasu transferred the accused $120. ⁴ The accused placed an order (which included Vasu’s 10g) from his supplier, one “Izmil”. ⁵ On 2 November 2022, Izmil came to the accused’s block in the evening and handed over the drugs that the accused ordered. The accused paid Izmil for the drugs. The accused then informed Vasu of the delivery and Vasu came to collect the drugs from the accused ⁶ at around 8.36pm at the vicinity of Blk 164 Jalan Teck Whye Singapore 680164. ⁷

18 Subsequently, Vasu and accused were separately arrested. On 6 November 2022, at about 8.45am, Vasu was arrested by a party of Central Narcotics Bureau (“CNB”) officers at his residence. On the same day, at about 11.15am, the accused was arrested by a party of CNB officers at the level 15 lift lobby of Blk 164 Jalan Teck Whye. He was then led to his unit at #15-242 of the said block.

19 During Vasu's arrest, among other items, an exhibit marked “AlA” was seized from him by a CNB officer Muhammad Hanif bin Abdul Jalil, which Vasu indicated was from the accused.

20 The said exhibit was sent by CNB officer Muhammad Irfan bin Asli to the HSA for analysis. Lee Yan Kai, an analyst with the Illicit Drugs Laboratory (“IDL”) of the HSA, issued one certificate under Section 16 of the MDA bearing Lab No. 2219914-ID-001, ⁸ indicating that the said exhibit “AlA” contained the following:

(a) not less than 2.49g of vegetable matter found to be cannabis; and

(b) not less than 2.80g of fragmented vegetable matter found to contain cannabinol and tetrahydrocannabinol.

21 The mixture of vegetable matters above was therefore not less than 5.29g of cannabis mixture.

22 Cannabis mixture is a Class A controlled drug listed in the First Schedule to the MDA.

23 Following his arrest, various statements were recorded from the accused:

(a) A contemporaneous statement on 6 November 2022 at 12.40pm, recorded by SS Nor Saharil bin Sulaiman. ⁹

(b) A further contemporaneous statement on 6 November 2022 at 3.20pm, recorded by Sgt(3) Khairul Faiz. ¹⁰

(c) A video recorded interview (“VRI”) statement on 6 November 2022 at 10.04pm, recorded by IO Ong. ¹¹

(d) A further VRI statement on 9 May 2023 at 2.37pm, recorded by IO Ong. ¹²

(e) A cautioned statement under s 23 of the CPC on 7 November 2022 at 1.27am, recorded by IO Ong. ¹³

24 The statements were recorded in English, and were recorded voluntarily. No threat, inducement or promise was made to the accused before, during or after the recording of the statement. ¹⁴ During the trial, there were also no challenges to the accuracy of any of these statements.

25 In the course of the statements and at trial, the accused did not dispute the nature of the drugs and his knowledge that “A1A” contained cannabis mixture. He also did not claim that he was authorised otherwise to traffic in the drugs.

26 During investigations, the accused’s mobile phone, which was seized from him, was sent for forensic examination. On 29 January 2026, Ashley Roshan Colombo, a forensic examiner with the Digital Forensics Division of the Criminal Investigation Department, produced a forensic report (Report Ref. No.: DF/2026/94). ¹⁵ The forensic report extracted the Telegram chat logs between the accused and Vasu.

27 I will thus focus on the sole issue in dispute, which was whether the accused’s acts constituted trafficking by selling the drugs to Vasu.

28 The Prosecution’s case was a simple one – that by passing the drugs to Vasu following Vasu's payment of $120, the accused had sold the drugs to him. The element of trafficking had thus been fulfilled. ¹⁶

29 The Defence’s case was that trafficking was not disclosed on the facts. I understood the Defence’s arguments to broadly speaking be as follows:

(a) First, the Defence argued that the accused was merely “returning” Vasu’s share of drugs when Vasu came to collect his order of drugs from the accused. ¹⁷ This appeared to allude to the defence of bailment as set out in the Court of Appeal’s decision in Ramesh Perumal.

(b) Second, the Defence argued that the accused was merely “sharing” his drugs with Vasu, not selling the drugs to him. Both the accused and Vasu were buyers and Izmil was the only seller trafficking drugs to both of them. The accused and Vasu pooled their order with Izmil because it was cheaper than buying a smaller quantity from him individually. ¹⁸

(c) Third and in any event, the accused made no profit in his transaction with Vasu. “Selling” required an exchange of goods from a supplier to a purchaser for monetary gain, but the absence of profit meant that no sale had taken place. ¹⁹

30 Having carefully considered the facts of the present case, the relevant case law and the parties’ submissions, I rejected the Defence’s arguments and found that the accused’s act did amount to trafficking cannabis mixture by selling the drugs to Vasu.

31 I begin with the definition of “traffic” in s 2 of the MDA. “Traffic” is defined broadly as selling, giving, administering, transporting, sending, delivering or distributing.

32 The ordinary meaning of “sell” is to give or hand over something in exchange for money. Whether the drugs were sold at cost or at a profit is immaterial: see Foong Seow Ngui and others v Public Prosecutor
[1995] 3 SLR(R) 254 at [40]. For this reason, the Defence’s third argument that a sale could not have taken place because no profit was made added an impermissible gloss on the wording of s 2 of the MDA, which does not impose any requirement of selling for profit. I should add that in my view, it is entirely justified that there is no need to establish the profit-making element, considering the difficulty of determining whether and to what extent profits are made by a drug trafficker. Such a matter would exclusively be within the knowledge of the trafficker himself, who is unlikely to keep any proper accounts on his illicit activities. Requiring proof of profits would mean that a drug peddler can escape liability by conveniently making the self-serving claim that he did not make any gain on the transaction.

33 In the present case, the facts were uncomplicated. It was undisputed that Vasu placed an order with the accused for about 10g of cannabis sometime around 27 October 2022. ²⁰ He paid the accused $120 for the drugs. ²¹ In turn, the accused placed an order with his supplier, Izmil. ²² On 2 November 2022, Izmil delivered the full order of cannabis with the accused and the accused paid Izmil for those drugs accordingly. ²³ Vasu then met with the accused on the night of 2 November 2022 to obtain the cannabis he ordered from the accused. ²⁴

34 In my assessment, this was a classic sale of the drugs by the accused to Vasu, because the accused handed over Vasu’s order of drugs in exchange for payment.

35 I turn to consider the defences advanced by the accused, beginning with the defence of bailment.

36 The Court of Appeal in Ramesh Perumal specifically considered the question of whether an individual who took possession of drugs with the intention of returning them to their owner, or the person from whom he received them, was in possession of those drugs for the purpose of trafficking. In this regard, the Court of Appeal noted that it was a well-established policy of the MDA to distinguish between traffickers and mere addicts, as the MDA provided much less severe penalties for the offences of consumption and possession as compared to trafficking (at [106]). Parliament’s intent was to target those involved in the supply and distribution of drugs within society (at [108]). The Parliamentary Debates showed that in enacting the MDA and legislating for harsh penalties to be imposed in respect of trafficking offences, Parliament was not simply concerned with addressing the movement of drugs per se, but the movement of drugs along the supply chain towards end-users (at [109]).

37 The Court of Appeal therefore held that the legislation was not intended to capture cases of “bailment”, ie, where a person returned drugs to the person who originally deposited those drugs with him. Therefore, those who held a quantity of drugs with no intention of parting with them other than to the person who originally deposited those drugs with him did not come within the definition of possession of drugs for the purpose of trafficking. This was in contrast to those who possessed the drugs with a view to passing the drugs onwards to a third party. This was because in the former situation, the returning of the drugs to a person who already was in possession of them to begin with could not form part of the process of disseminating the drugs from a source of supply towards the recipients to whom the drugs are to be supplied. On the other hand, in the latter situation, the intended transfer of the drugs to a third party was presumptively part of the process of moving the drugs along a chain in which they will eventually be distributed to their final consumer (at [110]).

38 In Ramesh Perumal itself, Ramesh and the co-accused, Chander Kumar a/l Jayagaran (“Chander”) were drivers for a company based in Malaysia which made deliveries into Singapore. On the day in question, Chander drove Ramesh into Singapore through the Woodlands Checkpoint, and drove to a parking location along Woodlands Road. At some point during this journey, Chander passed Ramesh a blue bag containing four bundles of diamorphine, which Ramesh had in his possession at the time of his arrest. The Court of Appeal found that there was reasonable doubt as to the Prosecution's case that Ramesh had agreed to deliver the bundles at Chander's request. It considered that at least one reasonable possibility was that Ramesh had merely been safekeeping the bundles for Chander, intending to return them to him later (at [87]). This did not fall within the definition of trafficking in the MDA. It therefore acquitted Ramesh of the possession for the purpose of trafficking charge and convicted him of the amended charge of possession of the drugs instead (at [117]).

39 The Court of Appeal in Roshdi bin Abdullah Altway [2022] 1 SLR 535 subsequently clarified (at [115]) that Ramesh Perumal did not establish the general proposition that any “bailee” who received drugs, intending to return them to the “bailor” would never be liable for trafficking. The key query was whether the “bailee” in question knew or intended that the “bailment” was in some way part of the process of supply or distribution of the drugs.

40 In my judgment, the present case was plainly not a case of bailment in the first place. The fundamental defect with the Defence’s argument was that this was not a situation where Vasu had originally been in possession of the drugs, had deposited them with the accused, and the accused had held on to the drugs with the sole intention of returning them to Vasu. Instead, the accused purchased the drugs from Izmil, his supplier, and passed the drugs to a third party, Vasu, for his own consumption. ²⁵ This act evidently moved the drugs along the supply chain towards an end user (Vasu), which was exactly what Parliament intended to capture in the enhanced penalties for drug traffickers.

41 I move on to the Defence’s second argument, which was that both the accused and Vasu were buyers, and the only supplier was Izmil. The accused and Vasu were simply “sharing” or “pooling” their orders with Izmil, since it was more cost-efficient to combine their orders into a larger one. As such, the accused did not sell the drugs to Vasu.

42 However, having considered the totality of the evidence, this belied the true nature of the transaction in the charge as well as the accused’s wider role as a drug supplier not only in this transaction but also in other transactions.

43 The starting point was that Vasu admitted that he never had any contact with Izmil, the supplier that the accused purchased the drugs from. He never directly placed any order with Izmil. Instead, he placed the order with the accused, ²⁶ and paid the accused for the drugs. What the accused did was therefore to purchase drugs from his supplier, Izmil, and pay Izmil the full price of the drugs. He then supplied the drugs to Vasu for Vasu’s own consumption. Without the accused as the intermediary, Vasu would not have been able to obtain the drugs. The accused was thus clearly engaged in the supply and distribution of drugs to a third-party end-user further down in the supply chain, in exchange for payment. This satisfied the definition of trafficking by selling.

44 Viewed in its proper context, the accused’s conduct in his transaction with Vasu in relation to “A1A” was consistent with his other acts evidencing his role as a drug supplier.

45 First, the accused did not merely procure drugs for Vasu around 2 November 2022, but distributed cannabis to multiple recipients in exchange for payment on that same occasion. Although the charge was framed only for the sale of “A1A” to Vasu for $120, the accused had in fact ordered a total of four bricks of cannabis from Izmil for about $2,000. Each brick of cannabis weighed around 40 to 45 grams. ²⁷ He passed three out of the four bricks of cannabis to a friend, “Rias”, who paid him about $1,350 to $1,500 for the drugs. ²⁸ He also handed over 15g of cannabis to another friend, “Audi”, who paid him $180. This was also captured in his Telegram conversation with Audi. ²⁹ In this regard, I disbelieve what the accused said belatedly during his examination-in-chief that he had only purchased one brick of cannabis from Izmil around 2 November 2022, and that the brick was purely for Vasu and himself. ³⁰ This was contrary to his clear account to IO Ong in his statement and sought to downplay his role in the transaction.

46 Second, and prior to the events around 2 November 2022, the accused had been supplying cannabis to his friends on a regular basis over an extended period. Upon questioning by IO Ong, the accused eventually confessed in his statement to helping (in his estimate) fewer than 10 friends obtain cannabis since May 2022. ³¹ He would purchase two to five bricks of cannabis from Izmil each time, keeping at most one brick for himself and supplying the rest to his friends. ³² The friends to whom he supplied drugs to included Vasu, Audi, Rias and “Caleb”. He passed drugs to each of them on multiple occasions. ³³

47 Furthermore, the accused’s use of various paraphernalia in his unit to weigh and repack cannabis for distribution was consistent with the behaviour of a drug supplier rather than a mere consumer. The accused admitted that he repacked the bricks of cannabis from Izmil and weighed them before passing the requisite amounts to his friends, including Vasu. ³⁴ During his arrest, a digital weighing scale and one packet containing numerous ziplock bags were also seized from his unit. ³⁵ During cross-examination, the accused tried to distance himself from the incriminating items in two ways:

(a) First, he denied that the weighing scale and ziplock bags found in his unit were used for weighing and repacking drugs for his friends. He claimed that the weighing scale was used to weigh the drugs he obtained from his suppliers to ensure that he had not been cheated. It also functioned as a “cooking scale” which he used for his own baking. As for the ziplock bags, he stated that he used them to repack drugs for his own consumption to keep them fresh. ³⁶ However, I did not find these claims to be credible, as they were made belatedly at trial in an attempt to downplay his culpability and were contrary to his clear admissions in his statements.

(b) Second, he claimed that on the night of 2 November 2022, he had brought one brick of cannabis in a bag to meet Vasu at the foot of his block. Vasu took some cannabis from the brick himself, which was “roughly about 10 grams”, ³⁷ or about one-quarter of the brick. ³⁸ This was not weighed precisely as it was “easy to eyeball”. ³⁹ I found it incredible that the accused would have simply allowed Vasu to take an approximate amount of drugs from the brick in such a cavalier manner, especially when, as the Prosecution pointed out, ⁴⁰ a portion of that brick (15g) was meant to be passed to Audi. Again, I found that the accused’s version of events indicated his intention to distance himself from the transaction.

48 For the above reasons, I found that the accused’s acts amounted to selling cannabis mixture to Vasu, which fell within the definition of trafficking under s 2 of the MDA. I did not accept the accused’s strained interpretations of his actions, which obscured what was, in truth, a straightforward factual matrix. I therefore found that the Prosecution had proven the charge against the accused beyond a reasonable doubt and convicted the accused of the charge accordingly.

49 After I convicted the accused of the trafficking charge, the accused elected to plead guilty to the stood down charges for consumption of a specified drug (DAC-916398-2023), possession of a controlled drug (DAC-916399-2023) and possession of drug utensils (DAC-916400-2023). The Prosecution proceeded only on the charge for consumption of a specified drug (DAC-916398-2023), 11-Nor-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol-9-carboxylic acid (a cannabinol derivative). The accused then admitted to the following facts taken from the Statement of Facts without qualification.

50 Following the accused’s arrest on 6 November 2022, an instant urine test was conducted on him, and his urine sample was found to contain cannabis.

51 On the same day, the accused provided two bottles of his urine samples. On 7 November 2022, the said urine samples were submitted to the Analytical Toxicology Laboratory (“ATL”) of the HSA for analysis, and their results are as follows:

(a) On 21 November 2022, Sim Sze Mun Chermaine, an analyst with the ATL in the HSA, issued one certificate (Lab No. 2219831-AT-001) under s 16 of the MDA, indicating that, on analysis, the urine sample contained 11-Nor-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol-9-carboxylic acid (a cannabinol derivative).

(b) On 21 November 2022, Ong Han Hui Jordan, an analyst with the ATL in the HSA, issued one certificate (Lab No. 2219831-AT-002) under s 16 of the MDA indicating that, on analysis, the urine sample contained 11-Nor-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol-9-carboxylic acid (a cannabinol derivative).

52 11-Nor-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol-9-carboxylic acid is a Specified Drug listed in the Fourth Schedule to the MDA, and is a cannabinol derivative. The accused’s urine samples were found positive for the drug due to his consumption of cannabis. The accused admitted to smoking cannabis prior to his arrest on 6 November 2022 at about 1.00am in his room alone. He smoked three “joints” where he mixed tobacco with cannabis. He smoked cannabis to help him relax and sleep. He first smoked cannabis in 2020 in Melbourne, Australia. By 2022, he smoked about three to four times a week. He would smoke cannabis whenever he felt sad, and the quantity of cannabis depended on his feelings.

53 By virtue of the foregoing, the accused had committed an offence under s 8(b)(ii) of the MDA punishable under s 33(3A) of the MDA.

54 Finally, I explain the sentence imposed on the accused.

55 The accused was untraced prior to his current offences.

56 The following summarises the positions of the Prosecution and the Defence in relation to the two charges:

57 For DAC-917247-2022, I imposed five years’ and three months’ imprisonment and the mandatory minimum five strokes of the cane. The imprisonment term imposed was only slightly higher than the mandatory minimum of five years. The accused, having claimed trial, was not entitled to any discount for pleading guilty to the offence. In addition, I considered the similar charges taken into consideration for the purpose of sentencing, namely, possession of a controlled drug (DAC-916399-2023) and possession of drug utensils (DAC-916400-2023), which had the effect of increasing the sentence which the court would otherwise have imposed for the proceeded charge (Public Prosecutor v UI [2008] 4 SLR(R) 500 at [37]).

58 For DAC-916398-2023, I imposed the mandatory minimum sentence of one year’s imprisonment.

59 To ensure that the accused’s sentence was not crushing, and in keeping with his past record and his future prospects (Mohamed Shouffee bin Adam v Public Prosecutor [2014] 2 SLR 998 at [57]), I ordered that the sentences run concurrently for a global sentence of five years’ and three months’ imprisonment and five strokes of the cane. This was consistent with the High Court’s affirmation of the lower court’s sentence in Amin bin Abdullah v Public Prosecutor [2017] 5 SLR 904. The imprisonment term was backdated to 6 November 2022, the date of the accused’s arrest, and took into account the period he was in custody from 6 November 2022 to 8 November 2022 (the date he was released on court bail), but excluded the period he spent on bail from 8 November 2022 onwards.

60 The facts of the present case, in my assessment, fell squarely within the definition of trafficking in cannabis mixture by means of sale. The accused’s contrived characterisations of his actions as “sharing” or “returning” the drugs to Vasu were ultimately unsustainable. The accused’s evasive responses in his VRI statements and his testimony at trial indicated that he consistently downplayed his involvement in the transaction, evidently for fear of attracting a more serious charge and a heavier punishment. This also resulted in various inconsistencies between his testimony at trial and his statements. Furthermore, he concealed his acts of selling drugs not only to Vasu, but to other friends, not only on 2 November 2022, but on multiple other occasions – details which only emerged when he was pressed or confronted with contradictory evidence.

61 For these reasons, I convicted the accused of the trafficking charge accordingly. Upon his plea of guilt to the remaining charges, I imposed sentences which were in my view fair and reasonable.

62 The accused is presently on bail pending appeal.