A MAN who grew a commercial quantity of cannabis to extract oils and resins for self-medication should have been referred to a specialist in addiction for pain management, Bathurst Local Court was told last week.
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Darrin Michael Whyms, 41, was before the court for sentence over 90 cannabis plants that Chifley Target Action Group police found growing in a backyard shed on a property in Mutton Falls Road, O'Connell.
Whyms, who lived in the house only a few metres from the shed, had grown hydroponic cannabis plants immersed in a solution in two rooms under heat lamps, police said.
Whyms made full admissions and co-operated with TAG police who executed a search warrant about 9.30am on Tuesday, January 19. He said he'd previously grown and boiled cannabis 40-50 times.
Magistrate Jan Stevenson convicted and sentenced Whyms to nine months' jail, suspending the sentence for Whyms to enter a Section 12 bond.
In addition, Ms Stevenson ordered Whyms to report to Bathurst police station to be fingerprinted and photographed. She made orders for the cannabis plants police seized to be destroyed.
Ms Stevenson also had before her a brief report from the Magistrate's Early Referral Into Treatment program diverting drug offenders into effective drug treatment.
The report confirmed Whyms had been referred to MERIT but had been assessed unsuitable because he didn't consider his cannabis usage problematic because it was for medicinal purposes.
According to the statement Mr Oakley tendered, written by Whyms, along with back up x-rays and medical reports, the defendant had been 17 when he suffered serious neck and back injuries in a motorcycle accident on May 26, 1986.
Whyms had four broken vertebrae in his neck and two in his back, an incomplete quadriplegic with broken wrist, collarbone and ribs diagnosed with Brown's Syndrome, one side of his body lacking muscle growth.
He had spent nine days in intensive care and 13 weeks in the spinal unit at Royal North Shore Hospital, later finding that cannabis brought him pain relief. Ms Stevenson took into account the circumstances of the offence and noted that there was no challenge to the fact Whyms used the cannabis for medicinal purposes.
She also said all 90 of his plants had not been viable, some had died. But Whyms had adopted a sophisticated means of growing a prohibited drug in commercial quantities.
