Man with cannabis bags ‘heavy smoker’

Press, 12 July 1980, Page 7

Man with cannabis bags ‘heavy smoker’

A man who was found by police to have plastic rub- < bish bags of cannabis plant material in his car. andhouse, and who claimed to be a heavy smoker of this ; drug, was found guilty by a t jury in the High Court i yesterday on a charge of . possessing cannabis plant ■ for sale or supply. The accused. Colin James; Taylor, aged 28. unemployed,: who had'denied the offence, was remanded on bail to 1 July 18 for sentence, by Mr;l Justice Casey. I, Mr D. C. Fitzgibbon appeared for the accused, and I Mr B. M. Stanaway for the; Crown. ’ i 1 The jury took an hour and J 20 minutes to reach its ver-,: diet. I ! Crown evidence was given! that the accused was driving ( a car stopped by police near:, his home at 3.50 a.m. on No-i> vember 29. Inside the car were twoh plastic rubbish bags contain-'; ing cannabis plant, and a < paper parcel with cannabis; leaf. Il

A search of his house produced a plastic rubbish bag of plant material in the ceiling, and 19 "bullets” (tinfoil wraps) of cannabis, and glass and bamboo pipes, in The kitchen. Evidence was that when questioned by a constable the accused said he had been taking a friend, “Mike.” thome when stopped by the police. The two plastic bags of cannabis found in the car belonged to “Mike,” who ,had them when he was pick-; (ed up earlier in the evening and was taking them to his place. The cannabis plant mat-; ; erial totalled about 9.3 kilograms and the leaf material., if dried, was estimated to (have weighed just under 460 ’grams. ! The accused said in evi-( dence that he had been a i cannabis smoker for 12 iyears and if he had a good i supply he smoked about 20 to 30 cigarettes a day, using ; about loz (28.3 grams) of cannabis a day. At 1 a.m. on November 29 I he and friends picked a

•quantity of growing can-1 ; nabis at another address, I ■ and returned to his house: I where they stripped the leaf: I from the stalks, bagging’ . each in separate bags. He and a friend intended' i sharing the cannabis, half; • each, when it was dried. The' i stalks of the plants were to! ’ be dumped. • The cannabis in the ceil--i ing was intended for his ’.supply for Christmas. He did; ’ not sell or supply cannabis! •(to others. •' Cross-examined, the ac- ’ cused said he was able to ■maintain his cannabis smoking habit by growing his ’own. He did not usually “smoke "bullets,” and the 20 ?!he purchased, costing $2OO, (had been bought from savings during the year. .1 Other defence evidence .(was given that the 2.3 kiloj; grams of cannabis found in lithe ceiling would dry out to J about one-fifth that weight Tof “smokeable” cannabis. i Witnesses also said the II accused was a very heavy i'smoker of