SA man avoids jail after drug death

A South Australian man whose neighbour died after he passed on a box of prescription morphine medication was "unaware of the danger" and has avoided jail time.

Keith Jericho was prescribed Kapanol, a slow-release morphine capsule, after he was hospitalised for a blood clot in 2015.

He was buying about two boxes of the drug each month when his neighbour at Mannum, 100 kilometres east of Adelaide, developed flu-like symptoms in February 2017.

Sentencing the 62-year-old in the District Court this week, Judge Paul Cuthbertson said the woman, a mother of four, asked Jericho for the drug and he gave her two boxes.

That night, she went to bed and snored loudly but the next morning couldn't be roused.

The woman, whose cause of death was morphine toxicity, had been prescribed methadone and other psycho-active and pain drugs in the months leading up to her death.

While Judge Cuthbertson said Jericho's actions had "very significant consequences", he said an intellectual disability left him "gullible" and meant he could not envisage the outcome.

"The offender did not receive any payment for the supply of the drugs," he said.

"It was not in a deliberate or pre-planned attempt to break the law and the offender was unaware of the danger and possible consequence of his actions."

Jericho, who pleaded guilty to supplying or administering a controlled drug, was jailed for 14 weeks, but the term was suspended and he was placed on a two-year, good-behaviour bond.