STATE OF TASMANIA v CRAIG ANTHONY BARNES 12 SEPTEMBER 2019
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Craig Barnes, you plead guilty to cultivating a controlled plant for sale and trafficking in a controlled substance. I also agreed to deal with your plea of guilty to two firearm offences. You live in an independent unit on a 10 acre property at St Helens. Your son and grandson live in the house. On 26 March 2019 police officers came and searched. In the bush they found a fenced compound containing 19 cannabis plants which you planted in December 2018. There was another compound in the garden containing a further five plants which you planted in January this year. In a bus parked near the first compound a young man was in the process of trimming cannabis plants already harvested. The police found 1.16 kilograms of cannabis bud, 2.235 kilograms of cuttings and 175 grams of leaf. There was a further 188.6 grams of cannabis bud in a flower pot and 572.4 grams of chopped cannabis in a bag. In your unit there was 41 grams of cannabis mix in the bedroom. There were some cannabis seeds in the shed and one more plant in a camper van. In addition to the cannabis, you had a Stirling .22 magnum rifle and a .22 bolt action rifle with a magazine in a shed, and a rifle barrel, none of which you were licensed to possess.
You admit that all of the cannabis was yours. You asked the other man to help you trim the plants which he did in return for payment in cannabis. You also gave cannabis bud to about 12 other people you knew, who were already cannabis users, either for nothing or in return for help. You gave away the bud without even weighing it. As to the rifles, you found them in the bush 10 years ago and they were already rusted and unusable. For some reason you have kept them stored all of this time. The law is that if you swap cannabis for something of value that amounts to selling it. By bartering cannabis for labour you trafficked in it. To the extent that you cultivated the cannabis intending to use some of it to pay for help in dealing with the crop you cultivated it for sale.
You are now 66. You led an industrious early adult life until you were badly injured in a mine accident in 1979. You underwent a spinal fusion in 1986. You have been a disability pensioner since age 38. As a result of your injuries you suffer from chronic pain. You have no prior convictions for drug offences. You have no prior convictions of any nature until 2005 when you were fined for possessing unregistered firearms without a licence. It also seems you turned to alcohol as a result of your suspicion of prescription medication, and you committed some alcohol related driving offences, the most recent of which was in 2013. It involved a very high reading and you were given a short suspended sentence. You developed pancreatitis a few years ago and gave up alcohol, and you started to use cannabis for pain relief. These plants were cultivated so you did not have to buy cannabis from others. Unusually, you do not use the cannabis bud, but instead you boil down the parts of the plant usually regarded as waste for butter and for paste for cooking. For that reason you dealt with the bud as I have explained. Some of the unused head has been discarded in the past. You pleaded guilty as soon as you could.
This is an unusual case. Your offences involved very little commercial element. The primary object was personal use. The eventual dried weight of the bud you had was between 1 and 1½ kilograms. Most of the rest was waste. However, in addition, you had 25 other plants. Parliament, which makes the law, provides for very heavy penalties for crimes of this nature. As a result of what you have been doing, a not inconsiderable amount of cannabis has been released into the community. You cannot pay a substantial fine. You cannot perform community service. I think a short suspended sentence is the only appropriate sentence. You must understand that the law makes it a condition of a suspended sentence that you must not commit any offence punishable by imprisonment while the order remains in force. If you breach that condition by committing another drug offence, or indeed an offence of any type which may result in imprisonment, you are likely to have to serve the sentence. In that regard, your counsel has told me that you will stop using cannabis and seek further assistance from your GP for conventional medication. It is important that you follow through with that.
Craig Barnes, on complaint 32561/2019, counts 5 and 6, the firearm charges, you are convicted and fined $250. On all other counts I impose one sentence. You are sentenced to a term of imprisonment of four months, wholly suspended for 18 months from today. If you commit an offence punishable by imprisonment during that period a court must activate that sentence unless that is unjust.