STATE OF TASMANIA v DANIEL JAMES CHRISTOPHER BASTICK 20 JUNE 2025
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE CUTHBERTSON J
Daniel James Christopher Bastick, you were found guilty by a jury of trafficking in a controlled substance, and cultivating a controlled plant for sale. I also agreed to deal with your pleas of guilty to the summary offences of cultivating a controlled plant, possessing a thing used for the administration of a controlled drug (namely a glass smoking device), and using a controlled plant product. These matters arose from the same factual circumstances.
On 14 April 2023, Tasmania Police executed a search warrant that had been obtained in relation to a property you lived at with your parents in Youngtown. You were not home when the warrant was executed shortly after midnight but arrived a short time later.
Footage of the search was captured by police with body worn camera. Fourteen cannabis plants were found growing in the backyard of the property. Inside the property, numerous drug related items were found including two hydroponic grow tents, grow lights, a fan, and a cannabis trimming machine. A further seven plants were located inside one of the grow tents. One of those plants was described as a “mother” plant from which clones were being obtained by you. There were also six seedlings in the grow tent that had been cloned from the mother plant.
A further search of the premises located large quantities of dried cannabis, including the following:
- a black carry all bag containing seven foil-lined zip lock bags containing dried cannabis bud. The total weight of cannabis bud in those bags was 3.042 kilograms;
- a further foil-lined snap lock bag containing 259 grams of cannabis bud, located next to the carry all;
- a drying rack located in the main bedroom, which contained 518 grams of cannabis bud; and
- a black plastic tub in the living area, containing 763 grams of cannabis bud.
You told police that this dried cannabis bud had all come from cannabis you had harvested from the plants you had grown in the back yard. This cannabis bud alone weighed 4.582 kilograms.
Large quantities of loose dried cannabis, cannabis stalk and leaf, cannabis seeds and snap lock bags containing smaller amounts of cannabis, some of which had an aged appearance, were located throughout the property. Much of it was on the floor of the areas of the house you occupied or in various containers on the floor, shelves and inside drawers.
Of the plants growing outside, a number had already been partially or fully harvested. There were, however, a number of other plants remaining in the backyard that appeared to be in bud and close to being ready for harvest.
Also located at the property were containers of nutrients, which you had used to tend to the plants in the backyard. You told police that you spent approximately $2,500 on those nutrients in the current growing year.
Given you were found in possession of and had cultivated a quantity of cannabis in excess of the trafficable quantity, namely one kilogram and twenty plants, the only issue at trial was whether you intended to sell any of it. The legislative scheme is such that it is presumed you intended to sell the cannabis or believed that another person intended to sell it, unless you satisfied the jury, on the balance of probabilities to the contrary. It follows from the verdicts of the jury that it was not satisfied you did not cultivate the plants or possess the cannabis with an intention that at least some of it was to be sold. Consistently with that verdict, it is for me to determine the factual basis of sentence.
You took part in a walkthrough interview with police at the time of the search and later participated in a record of interview. You told police the cannabis that had been harvested and was being grown was for you own personal use. The following is a summary of that evidence.
At the time of the search, you were living at the property with your parents. You were a manager of a hydroponics store. You were earning approximately $900 take home a week. You were paying approximately $600 a fortnight towards the support of your children who lived in Queensland.
You told police that you were a long time and heavy user of cannabis, having used for about 27 years. You claimed to use ten grams of marijuana a day mostly by smoking it using a “water pipe” about ten to twenty times a day. You mixed the cannabis with tobacco and said that each “cone” you smoked contained approximately .25 grams. You used cannabis because you suffer from social anxiety, rheumatoid arthritis and circulation issues. You said your use was mostly related to your mental health, although you had not been diagnosed with any mental health issue as you do not go to doctors and did not have a medical record as such. You told police that you had thought about using medical marijuana but at the quantities you used, the cost was completely prohibitive (about $160 per day) and would be more than you earned a week.
You said you were hoping to get enough from the outside plants to be your year’s supply of marijuana. You estimated you would use about six to eight pounds of cannabis in a year. You agreed that had put the cannabis into the foil-lined zip lock bags and weighed it when doing so. Each bag contained approximately a pound of cannabis. You said that you had the snap lock bags of dried cannabis in the carry bag just to store them so they were not loose. You said your practice was to decant a smaller amount from the larger bags that you would smoke from, and that once that emptied, you would go and get some more. As to the cannabis bud in the black tub, you told police that was some stuff you had harvested and had yet to put into a bag. You estimate the amount on the drying rack in the bedroom was approximately six ounces.
You had the hydroponic set up in your home for approximately six months. You agreed the cost of your set up, including fertilizers, was roughly around $8,000. You described your process of taking cuttings from the mother plant, then growing the plants to maturity outside. Three of the plants from the backyard were from the mother plant and the rest were grown from seed. You kept the mother plant in the grow tent so you could keep that strain which you found most effective for you. You claimed that of the six seedlings, you were going to keep one of them growing over winter so you would still have that variety available to you the following summer. The plan was to leave the plants in the grow tent in a vegetative state over the winter. You were asked about whether you would start again the following year, and you told police there was not going to be a next year as your parents were not happy with you doing that.
You told police you started harvesting between 14 to 18 days prior to the search. You said that you usually get four ounces of product per plant on average. You said you had been having trouble with it going to waste with mould. You started disposing of the product in waste bins and collecting what was okay for yourself. You said you threw a lot away because of mould and harvested the rest. You claimed there was actually mould through some of the remaining plants as well. You thought probably only half of the product would be usable on the remaining plans. You told police you planned to harvest it that weekend.
You described that once you harvested the plants, you put them over your trimming machine to remove all the leaf matter, then hung the stems in the drying tent for about a week before cutting the flowers off the stems and putting them on the drying rack, where they stayed for a further three to four days. You then described putting them in sealable bags to keep them fresh. You were asked if this was the first summer you had ever grown cannabis, and you said “no”.
Given that you had already harvested and dried more cannabis bud than you needed for a year, even at the high levels you claimed to use, you admitted to police you were probably going to end up with more than you needed. You told police you would have “literally just disposed of the lower grade stuff and kept the six or eight pound” that you needed. You further explained that by “disposed of,” you thought that you would probably have left it in a snap lock bag in another room to be found about ten years later by “the cops”.
During the trial, expert evidence was led by the State from Detective Sergeant Brent O’Mahony. He is an experienced police officer with specialist training and knowledge of matters relating to the manufacturing, distribution and use of illicit drugs. He gave evidence to the following effect:
- Based on his knowledge and experience, a heavy user of cannabis is someone that is using around four grams a day, that is 28.3 grams per week or one ounce;
- The yield of cannabis bud from a cannabis plant is dependent on a lot of factors, including the skill, knowledge and experience of the grower, together with the environmental factors around the plant. On average, there was no reason for an outdoor plant not to provide a pound of cannabis bud if it is in the ground for the full growing period and it has matured. Good quality plants will provide multiple pounds;
- Cannabis bud, if stored appropriately and in the best type of environmental condition, will be at its best for about 12 months and degrade significantly after that time;
- The volume of a cone used in a water pipe or bong is about .25 grams;
- Cannabis bud grown outdoors is sold for about $2,500 per pound;
- He was unable to estimate how much cannabis bud the remaining plants would yield once harvested.
I accept this evidence.
I accept that your intention was to keep a quantity of the cannabis to use yourself. It was evident from the evidence on the trial that you were a user of cannabis. There were three clearly used glass smoking devices located on your premises, and bags of cannabis bud in locations that strongly suggested it was being used by you. When you were searched by police on your return to the house on the evening of the execution of the search warrant, a quantity of cannabis and cannabis resin was found on you. Nevertheless, even on your claimed level of use, you had already harvested and processed cannabis bud that exceeded the amounts that you would require in any one year. If you smoked 10 grams per day, that would equate to 3.65 kilograms of cannabis. You already had 4.582 kilograms which is approximately two pounds in excess of the eight pounds you estimated you required. There were also a number of plants left to harvest.
The jury was not satisfied that you did not intend to sell at least some of it, and so that intention is to be presumed. I note there was no evidence on the trial of any actual sales occurring. The packaging of the cannabis into approximately one pound lots (on your admission), and it storage in a carry bag, is suspicious and consistent with the jury’s verdict. I also accept that there is no evidence of any unexplained wealth. There was no attempt to conceal the plants which were being grown in the backyard of your house. Police noted there was a strong smell of cannabis coming from the direction of your house when they approached to execute the search warrant. It further suggests an absence of any attempt to hide what you were doing.
Your maintenance of the mother plant and intention to grow out one of the seedlings to become a future mother plant was inconsistent with your claim that you were not going to grow a crop the following year. While I accept that a good portion of what you grew would be used by you, I do not accept that you use 10 grams a day. This claim was not supported by the evidence given by Detective Sergeant O’Mahony and was not consistent with the evidence you gave to police in your record of interview. You told police you smoked ten to twenty cones a day using a cone which holds .25 grams of cannabis mixed with tobacco. You would need to smoke 40 cones a day without mixing it with tobacco to use 10 grams a day. I find your use, albeit heavy, was no greater than five grams a day. This is a generous finding, based on acceptance you smoked 20 cones a day without mixing the cannabis with tobacco.
I find, consistent with the evidence I heard on the trial, that each pound of dried cannabis bud grown from an outdoor plant was likely to have a value of around $2,500. It is not possible for me to calculate the value of the excess precisely given that you had not completed the harvesting process, but based on the amount that had already been processed and packaged, or was awaiting packaging, you had between $5,000 (based on your claimed use) and $15,000 (based on use of five grams per day) worth of excess cannabis bud available for sale. It is not possible to estimate how much usable cannabis remained to be harvested but I reject your evidence in the record of interview that you obtain about 4 ounces from each plant. That is a quarter of the amount estimated by Detective Sargent O’Mahony and inconsistent with the amount you had already obtained from the plants you had harvested.
You are now 47 years old. You are single. You have two adult children from a former relationship which ended in 2010. You still provide financial support to your son who has a significant health issue. You grew up in a supportive environment. Your parents are still clearly supportive of you and you continue to live with them. You help them with some expenses and maintenance around the house. Your father is in the early stages of dementia. I expect you would be a support to your mother as your family navigate your father’s health issues. You have previously lived and worked interstate but have been in Tasmania since 2010. You have generally worked in the motor vehicle industry and are currently working as a car detailer and valuer in a car yard. You earn $700 per week net. You have few assets.
I accept you have used cannabis for the entirety of your adult life. You claim to use for medical reasons related to your mental health, but you have received no formal diagnosis. You are now prescribed medicinal cannabis. I have not been told the medical basis for the prescription. You are currently spending a significant amount of your income on your prescribed cannabis.
You have relevant prior matters. In 1996, you were fined for possessing a prohibited substance. In 1999, you were fined for possessing and using a prohibited substance and possessing and growing a prohibited plant. You were fined again in 2000 for possessing and using a prohibited substance and possessing, and growing a prohibited plant and possessing a smoking implement. In 2009, you were fined for cultivating, possessing and using a controlled plant and possessing a thing used for administration of a controlled drug. In 2016, you were fined and disqualified for driving whilst a prescribed illicit drug was present in your blood. In 2024, you were fined for possessing a controlled plant or its products. Such offending is consistent with your longstanding use of cannabis.
In 2011, you were also convicted in this Court of trafficking in a controlled substance, cultivating a controlled plant, possessing a controlled plant or its products, possessing a controlled drug and possessing a thing used for administration of a controlled drug. You were sentenced to a period of 12 months imprisonment, the execution of nine months of which was suspended. The trafficking charge related to methylamphetamine. You were found in possession of six bags of the drug which in total contained 113.2 grams. You were also a user of the drug at the time. You told police the substance in those bags was caffeine, and that you paid $200 for it. The Court on that occasion also found that the amounts you suggested you had been using were exaggerated and inherently implausible.
The State submits you had a sophisticated operation. I do not accept that. You primarily grew the plants in a suburban garden and appear to have used the grow tent solely to maintain the mother plant for cloning and to raise seedlings to be grown outside. Your offending, however, is serious, particularly in light of your prior convictions. This is not your first trafficking offence and the second time your possession of large quantities of illicit substances have resulted in such charges. While the amount of cannabis grown by you is not as great as this Court often encounters, it is necessary to impose a sentence that serves to deter you and others from engaging in such conduct. Your offending warrants the imposition of a period of imprisonment. I do not, however, consider it necessary to impose an actual period of imprisonment upon you for this offence. To do so would be a disproportionate response in light of the quantities of cannabis involved and absence of sophistication in your operation.
In relation to the matters I am dealing with pursuant to s 385A, the charge of cultivating a controlled drug which is count 2 on complaint 32472/2023 is subsumed with the cultivating a controlled plant for sale charge on the indictment. In light of the sentence I will impose on the indictable matters, I will record convictions in respect of the remainder.
James Christopher Bastick, you are convicted of the charges on the indictment and on counts 3 and 6 on complaint 32472/2023. On the indictment, you are sentenced to 9 months imprisonment, wholly suspended for three years from today on condition that you do not commit a further offence punishable by imprisonment.
I also make a forfeiture order pursuant to s 38 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 2001 of items 1-21, 24-39, 41-43 and 45-55 listed on the Property Seizure Record Receipt 216695.