Hi there,
Today I went to court charged with production of cannabis. When the police raided my house there were no plants, only sophisticated growing equipment and the harvest from the day before, so the cannabis hadn't been dried. In the police evidence report, they state that the cannabis was damp and beginning to go moldy, it weighed 658g with a street value of around £6500. They estimated that there were 17-23 plants given that they use an average weight of 40g per plant. I was charged as having a 'lesser role', meaning that the production was purely for my own use.
The new UK sentencing guidelines are that category 4 (discharge to med-level community order) is 9 plants @ 40g per plant, category 3 (Fine to 26 week in prison) is 28 plants @ 40g per plant. So according to the police report I was closer to cat 3, meaning a potential prison sentence (the judge gave it to parole to advise whether I should be sent down, and she said she will keep all her options open).
My question is this:
Is the '40g per plant' a dry weight or a 'just harvested' weight? The police calculated the value of the dope as if it had been dried, even though they clearly stated it had not been dried. Given that cannabis looses 75% of it's weight when properly prepared for use, that's pretty important in terms of my sentencing, given that I would easily fall into cat 4 if the dried weight was used. They also used the 658g to calculate how many plants I probably had. When my solicitor brought this up, the judged dismissed him saying that the value is irrelevant, it's the yield that's important in determining how many plants there were likely to have been. She didn't seem to understand that it was unclear if the '40g per plant' is a dry weight or not, and neither my solicitor nor the probation officer new for certain either.
Sorry I haven't written very clearly: Do the police assume that each plant will produce 40g of dried cannabis or 40g of wet just harvested cannabis? No one in the court could tell me this - ridiculous!
I have a meeting with probation on 25.4.12, so if I can clear this up before then that would be great. I'm happy to work in the community for no money, but I don't want to go to prison.
Thanks and peace to all x
Today I went to court charged with production of cannabis. When the police raided my house there were no plants, only sophisticated growing equipment and the harvest from the day before, so the cannabis hadn't been dried. In the police evidence report, they state that the cannabis was damp and beginning to go moldy, it weighed 658g with a street value of around £6500. They estimated that there were 17-23 plants given that they use an average weight of 40g per plant. I was charged as having a 'lesser role', meaning that the production was purely for my own use.
The new UK sentencing guidelines are that category 4 (discharge to med-level community order) is 9 plants @ 40g per plant, category 3 (Fine to 26 week in prison) is 28 plants @ 40g per plant. So according to the police report I was closer to cat 3, meaning a potential prison sentence (the judge gave it to parole to advise whether I should be sent down, and she said she will keep all her options open).
My question is this:
Is the '40g per plant' a dry weight or a 'just harvested' weight? The police calculated the value of the dope as if it had been dried, even though they clearly stated it had not been dried. Given that cannabis looses 75% of it's weight when properly prepared for use, that's pretty important in terms of my sentencing, given that I would easily fall into cat 4 if the dried weight was used. They also used the 658g to calculate how many plants I probably had. When my solicitor brought this up, the judged dismissed him saying that the value is irrelevant, it's the yield that's important in determining how many plants there were likely to have been. She didn't seem to understand that it was unclear if the '40g per plant' is a dry weight or not, and neither my solicitor nor the probation officer new for certain either.
Sorry I haven't written very clearly: Do the police assume that each plant will produce 40g of dried cannabis or 40g of wet just harvested cannabis? No one in the court could tell me this - ridiculous!
I have a meeting with probation on 25.4.12, so if I can clear this up before then that would be great. I'm happy to work in the community for no money, but I don't want to go to prison.
Thanks and peace to all x
