STATE OF TASMANIA v JEFFREY LYNCH 15 JUNE 2022
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE GEASON J
Mr Lynch you have pleaded guilty to trafficking in a controlled substance contrary to s 12(1) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 2001.
I am also asked to deal with some summary matters pursuant to s 385A of the Criminal Code. They are a charge of using controlled plants or its products; supply in controlled plants or its products; and being in possession of a silencer.
In summary the facts are that on 5 May 2021 members of the North Drug Investigations Service attended at your address in Fingal to execute a search warrant. You were present and the house was screened by a drug detection dog. Positive indications for drugs inside the house and the surrounding property were given by the dog.
A mobile phone was seized along with four buckets containing cannabis bud totaling about 3 kilograms; some smaller quantities of cannabis seeds and cannabis in the kitchen; 2 kilograms of cannabis stalk in a cupboard; a jar of cannabis and coconut oil and a cannabis oil in a syringe from the lounge room; in the backyard there were a little over 193 grams of cannabis stalk or leaf in the garden shed; 3 cannabis root balls in the ground in the garden beds. Growing agents were also found.
Police seized a mobile phone on which they found a number of messages from you with other people in relation to you supplying drugs.
You participated in a record of interview and admitted that you use cannabis; that you consume 2 cookies every day; that you give away around half the batch; that you gave 5 away about 2 days before; that you had consumed one yesterday,; that you use cannabis oil for anxiety on a daily basis; smoke cannabis joints sometime; use cannabis oil on your cigarettes, and that you were prescribed cannabis oil which you import from Queensland. You made admissions with respect to the cultivation of cannabis including that you watered and fertilized them daily, dried the cannabis in the shed and in a room in the house; and that you would have enough to smoke for a year and half. You admitted giving cannabis away in return for favours; you admitted to sending text messages, and indicated that you hoped to get $100 for 50 mls.
You said that you had not used the hydroponic equipment to grow cannabis though you had thought about doing so. You said that you had been growing for 3 out of the 5 years you had been in this State. In relation to the silencers you admitted coming into possession a few years prior to the police locating them. One was unusable, and one had been purchased online from America. You acknowledged that it was wrong to be in possession of those items.
A trafficable quantity of cannabis is a kilogram. You had 3 kilograms in your possession. That is three times the trafficable quantity. The State accepts that you did not intend to sell all of that cannabis. If you had done so, and sold it in pound lots, you stood to gain $15,000 to $18,000.
You appear before me with two prior convictions for possessing cannabis in 1989, and possessing equipment necessary for it’s administration. Those offences occurred in South Australia. There is a further conviction for possessing a controlled substance in 1992, also in South Australia. In this State you have a conviction in 1997 for possessing a prohibited drug; in 1996 you have two convictions for possessing cannabis.
Those offences are somewhat dated.
You are presently in receipt of a disability support pension, though I note that you had a long and industrious work history as a trawler fisherman for in excess of 35 years.
Though you have been prescribed medicinal cannabis, it is not suggested that the cannabis the subject of these charges is possessed pursuant to that prescription.
Offending such as yours requires a sentence which discourages similar offending and deters you from engaging in such conduct in the future. Whatever view may be taken of the law in respect of cannabis in this State, it remains unlawful to be in possession of it, or to traffic in it. Trafficking is the means by which the drug is disseminated within the community and thus the source of potential harm.
In relation to the charge of trafficking the appropriate court order is one which operates to reinforce those principles. The quantity in your possession was significant and the penalty must reflect that.
On that count I sentence you to six months’ imprisonment. In relation to the summary matters I record convictions.
By your plea of guilty you have acknowledge your wrongdoing, and exhibited a willingness to refrain from such conduct in the future, submitting yourself to punishment in this Court. Having regard to the circumstances generally, and notwithstanding the quantity in your possession, but accepting that you had no intention to sell anything like that quantity, and with a view to encouraging your rehabilitation, I have decided to suspend the sentence that I have just imposed for a period of two years. It is a condition of that suspension that you not commit an offence contrary to the Misuse of Drugs Act, or otherwise punishable by a term of imprisonment in that period.