A young Wick man who admitted growing and supplying cannabis, has been jailed for nine months.
Sean Munro, 22, suffers from epilepsy and asthma and claimed he had initially grown the drug to help bring him sum relief.
However, word got out and the operation escalated after he responded to requests from friends and he started charging them.
Police who raided Munro’s flat on Macrae Street, Wick, on May 30 last year, recovered 1,400 gms of cannabis valued at more than £12,000. They also uncovered a mini-cannabis factory, Wick Sheriff Court was told.
Five months later, police who returned to Munro’s house discovered he was still supplying the Class B drug and he was charged on indictment.
Solicitor Mike Burnett said that Munro found the cannabis, as opposed to prescribed medication, “worked for him” and helped him to sleep and reduced the likelihood of seizures.
Munro’s incentive in growing cannabis was that he could avoid the “economic impact” of purchasing his supplies from established dealers and it developed into a supply business. However, Mr Burnett stressed it wasn’t the case of someone acting for a major operator engaged in a county-wide distribution.
Sheriff Andrew Berry, who saw a background report, said that Munro appeared to have “learned nothing” from the earlier offences in May. Despite being advised by the medical authorities not to use cannabis, he had not co-operated with them and had not responded to a request to keep a seizures diary.
Sentencing Munro for being concerned in the supply of drugs in, October, Sheriff Berry expressed the hope that it would bring home to the accused and others, that it was criminal behaviour and “not acceptable”.:
The sheriff added: “I had, at times, considered a much longer sentence than nine months but I am satisfied that the public interest is met taking everything into account.”
Sheriff Berry took “the exceptional step” of admonishing Munro on the May offences.