STATE OF TASMANIA v JAMIE LOWE 3 JULY 2019
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE BLOW CJ
Mr Lowe has been found guilty by a jury on a charge of trafficking in a controlled substance. The controlled substance was cannabis. On the afternoon of Friday, 14 April 2017 he was stopped by a police officer who was conducting random breath tests on Ringarooma Road at Scottsdale. He was driving a utility, and was transporting a quantity of cannabis that he had grown at Golconda, heading towards his home at Winnaleah. The officer noticed the smell of cannabis. Mr Lowe was transporting about 8 Kg of recently harvested cannabis which, when dried, would have yielded about 194 g of usable cannabis bud.
As a result of finding that cannabis, police officers searched Mr Lowe’s home and subsequently interviewed him. At his home they found two rooms in which cannabis was being grown hydroponically. One room contained four young cannabis plants. The other contained two healthy mature cannabis plants. They also found about 34 g of usable or saleable cannabis and some quantities of cannabis leaf and stalk. When interviewed, Mr Lowe said that he had grown the cannabis from Golconda on Crown land, and that he had smoked some cannabis at his home the previous day. On the basis of those admissions, he was charged with using Crown land without lawful authority, contrary to s 46(1)(a) of the Crown Lands Act 1976, and with using cannabis. He has pleaded guilty to those charges and I am dealing with them under s 385A of the Criminal Code.
Mr Lowe was 51 years old at the time in question and is now 53. He has some significant prior convictions. He went to prison on a number of occasions in the 1980s in relation to crimes of dishonesty. He was convicted of driving whilst disqualified in 2000 and 2002. He was fined $1,500 on drug and firearm charges in 2002. He last went to prison in 2005 when a magistrate sentenced him to eight weeks’ imprisonment, with four weeks suspended, in relation to some drug charges and his third conviction for driving whilst disqualified. Those drug charges related to another incident when he was stopped for a random breath test near Scottsdale transporting some kilograms of recently harvested cannabis that was smelt by a police officer. In 2009, a magistrate fined him $1,000 for growing, possessing and using cannabis.
Mr Lowe works as a labourer, and travels long distances for the purpose of his work. He has a good industrial record. He is in good health. He and his partner live in a mortgaged house, and live within their means. They have a 1 year old son. Mr Lowe has some adult children, and two step-children who are children of a previous partner who is now deceased.
At the time to which the trafficking charge relates, Mr Lowe was using significant quantities of cannabis. Because he was found in possession of a trafficable quantity of cannabis, he bore the burden of satisfying the jury on the balance of probabilities that none of his cannabis was intended for sale. The verdict of the jury indicates that they were not satisfied of that. However I will sentence Mr Lowe on the basis that a significant component of the cannabis in his possession was intended for his personal use.
At the conclusion of the trial, I decided that, because of Mr Lowe’s prior convictions, his steady employment, and his family circumstances, the most appropriate penalty for him would be a home detention order, provided he was considered suitable for one. A probation officer has reported that Mr Lowe has been assessed as unsuitable for electronic monitoring because of a consistently low signal strength at his home in Winnaleah. There is no suggestion that he is unsuitable for a home detention order for any other reason. It would be unfair to impose a more severe form of sentence solely as a consequence of low signal strength. I will therefore not send Mr Lowe to prison, and I will not impose a suspended sentence of imprisonment because that could result in him going to prison for this trafficking if he should happen to re-offend. The only appropriate penalty is therefore a community service order. The number of hours of community service will reflect Mr Lowe’s prior convictions and the quantities of cannabis found in his possession.
Jamie Lowe, I convict you on all charges. On the indictment, I make a community correction order, with a special condition that within two years you must satisfactorily perform community service as directed by a probation officer or a supervisor for 175 hours. I make an order in respect of the costs of analysis under s 36B of the Misuse of Drugs Act 2001 in the sum of $1,200. I order that the barrel and the plastic luggage bag referred to on Property Seizure Record 151137 be forfeited to the State of Tasmania.