Cannabis count discussed

Press, 30 October 1981, Page 21

Cannabis count discussed

PA Wellington A man accused of possessing cannabis resin for supply has been discharged in the High Court at Wellington because of the scientific difficulty of deciding whether

cannabis is plant or resin. He is Gregory Moe Kronfield. aged 21. unemployed. The presiding judge. Mr Justice Ongley. said that the Crown had not brought its case to the stage where there was no reasonable doubt and that the jury should not be asked to determine the issue when there was a conflict of expert evidence. Cannabis resin was colloquially known as hashish, a term which was not capable of scientific definition. Under the Misuse of Drugs Act cannabis resin was a class B drug and cannabis plant was a class C drug. A scientist of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research had said in evidence that the resin was exuded from the plant in small globules and that there was no way of removing them without at the same time removing other microscopic parts of the plant. His Honour said that for practical purposes resin did not exist in bulk. A test showed the presence of resin

but no quantitative analysis had been carried out. Those factors led to a subjective judgment, which was not a sure test to decide whether a person was in possession of a class B or a class C drug-. The Crown’s evidence principally had been that of an undercover policeman who had developed an association with the accused.

A quantity of cannabis had been bought in block form and had been divided into three parts. The accused had said that he had thrown away the portion which had been given to him because of its poor quality. An analyst called by the defence had examined the other two portions and had found that they contained 26 per cent and 18.4 per cent respectively of cannabis, the soluble materials produced by the plant. The scientific evidence indicated that it was not possible to say what proportion of resin was attributable to class B or class C.