Narcotics officers could be forced to change the way they nab drugs mules after two landmark legal cases.

A legal source said Monday's Supreme Court decision to grant probation to Anthony Quinton Beach, who had earlier admitted importing $1.7 million of heroin, confirmed that catching people with controlled samples did not equal importing the entire sample.

He said an appeal judgment on the case of Luke Hill in December last year set a distinction between importing and collecting drugs.

He said after Police intercepted the drugs they had been replaced with a controlled sample but the appeal judgement held that he had only possessed them. But there was no evidence he had imported them but was merely a collector.

And in the Beach case, US authorities had taken out most of the drugs in America but defence lawyers successfully argued that Beach could not be found guilty of importing the entire haul.

He said if the authorities knew drugs were to be sent from abroad they would have to let them go and then have them carefully watched over here.

They could then be replaced with a small sample in Bermuda once it was clear there was evidence, such as an airway bill, that the collector was the one who had imported them.

Authorities have been taking the bulk of drugs away for fear of losing them before they could be recovered, said the source, who wished not to be named.

He said there had been cases of Police officers following drug consignments from the airport but finding they were not in the car by the time it was stopped in Hamilton. "They can make a detour, toss it out the window and by the time the cops come around the corner it's gone."

But he said the Drugs Enforcement Agency were putting pressure on Bermuda police to do controlled sample delivery because the law was stopping convictions.

The source also claimed Bermuda Police lacked the resources to mount a sting operation here by allowing drugs mules to make the delivery to local connections.

He said: "Getting a courier and having him sit in a jail for eight years won't get us anywhere. Couriers are a dime a dozen."

Last night Opposition Public Safety spokeswoman Patricia Gordon-Pamplin said: "Police will have to sharpen up their drug interdiction to make sure we have maximum protection to stop people who try to poison our children."