Senior Magistrate Will Francis yesterday sent a message to drug dealers when he handed down a two-year prison sentence to a man arrested in Operation Cleansweep for selling $20 worth of cocaine.

Cannoth Roberts, 21, of Middle Road, Southampton, was the first person in the joint sting operation on street dealers Islandwide to be convicted for selling cocaine.

Roberts was videotaped selling a rock of crack to an undercover Drug Enforcement Agency officer on April 8 on Broom Street in Sandys Parish. He was arrested on June 9 for the offence.

The 0.12 gram rock was 74 percent pure cocaine and had a street value of $20.

Senior Crown counsel Brian Calhoun emphasised to Mr. Francis the importance of sending a message to drug dealers.

"What you are deciding here today will affect what is about to be the struggle of the 90s and into 2000; namely who controls the streets,'' he said.

"Either the public themselves control the public areas of Bermuda or the drug fraternities do,'' he added.

"If you do not pass a serious enough sentence that will act as a deterrent, you will have the same situation in Bermuda that you do in parts of North America where there is lawlessness.

"We can't afford that in Bermuda. The Island is too small. And every Bermudian, both here and abroad, will suffer.'' Sen. Lawrence Scott, representing Roberts, said his client was a victim because of his addiction to crack.

And he criticised US policy that offered help from the DEA in catching criminals, but stopped people with drug convictions from entering the US to receive rehabilitation.

"I wish that if our American friends wanted to provide the broad hand of assistance, they could at least balance it,'' he said. "This young man might have been on his way (toward recovery) if Big Brother at US Customs and the system had worked successfully.'' Cleansweep sentence And Sen. Scott suggested that Mr. Francis "stretch the interpretation'' of the law to send Roberts overseas for rehabilitation.

But Mr. Francis abruptly stopped Sen. Scott, saying: "If you're asking me to offer a probation sentence, you may well be trying to climb Mount Everest in track shoes.

"I need legislative power to order him detained in a drug rehabilitation programme. That is what (National Drug Commission chairman Mansfield) Brock is trying to do, but it simply isn't in place yet,'' he added before handing down the sentence.