Pubdate: Sat, 19 Nov 2005
Source: Chronicle Herald (CN NS)
Copyright: 2005 The Halifax Herald Limited
Contact:  http://thechronicleherald.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/180
Author: Jocelyn Bethune
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

POT-GROWING SENIOR GETS CONDITIONAL SENTENCE

BADDECK - A teetotalling senior who was handed a conditional sentence
Friday for growing marijuana in his basement said he was cultivating
the estimated $30,000 worth of weed as a hobby.

"It was a challenge, really, to see if I could grow it. I was reading
a lot about it," Lawrence Cook, 67, said after his court appearance.

"I never sold it. I wouldn't know how to sell it or what to sell it
for. I didn't even know if it was any good."

Mr. Cook said he doesn't smoke, drink or do drugs.

The court heard that in June, a Nova Scotia Power employee noticed
illegal jumpers, used to divert electricity illegally, in the eaves of
Mr. Cook's South Harbour home.

The power company returned in July with RCMP officers and a search
warrant. Once inside, they found a secret doorway behind some shelving
and discovered a grow operation with 60 mature marijuana plants and
three garbage bags of plant buds.

Mr. Cook's lawyer, David Ianetti, told the court that the senior is an
upstanding citizen and a hard worker with no previous run-ins with the
law. He and his wife operated a restaurant in South Harbour for over
20 years, and when his wife died suddenly in 2002, Mr. Cook was left
with a pension of only $14,000 a year. He saw the grow op as a way to
make extra money, Mr. Ianetti said.

"This was an ill-thought-out foray into the drug world," the lawyer
said. Judge Peter Ross called the case "a strange one."

"This is unusual and rather difficult to understand," he told Mr.
Cook, who stood before the court dressed in a dark blue blazer and
dress pants.

"You don't strike me as one without scruples. Perhaps you didn't think
this was all that bad. There are changing norms in our society toward
marijuana, but that debate is for the parliamentarians, not for you
and I. I am here to uphold the law and you are to obey it."

Judge Ross accepted a joint recommendation for a conditional sentence
that includes 12 months of house arrest. Mr. Cook has moved to Sydney
and is allowed to leave his home for medical and legal appointments,
church services and to travel to his South Harbour home to keep an eye
on it.

He is to forfeit all the equipment he used in the grow op and he owes
Nova Scotia Power $2,448.49 for the estimated amount of electricity he
used illegally over a four-month period.

Asked after the sentencing why he chose to grow marijuana at this
stage of his life, Mr. Cook said: "It was kind of stupid, I guess. I
really didn't take into consideration the full legal ramifications of
doing it. If I had, I wouldn't have done it.

"I think I'll stick to making furniture and stained glass lamps."
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake