APPEAL COURT TELLS POT GROWER HE'LL HAVE TO SERVE TIME IN JAIL

A marijuana grower who was arrested while cultivating an outdoor area
the size of a football field with a potential yield of $2 million
won't be allowed to serve his 18-month sentence at home.

Douglas Copeland was arrested in August 2001 and found to have 1,700
maturing marijuana plants in a field he began clearing just 14 days
after being released from jail after serving a sentence for drug
trafficking.

During his trial earlier this year, the 54-year-old convinced a judge
that in the interval between his arrest he'd turned his life around,
was law abiding, steadily employed and had remarried.

Based on this and the judge's opinion that Copeland was no danger to
the public and should be given an opportunity for rehabilitation, she
sentenced him to house arrest for the first 12 months, allowing him to
leave home to attend work, counselling, shopping, or organized
religious meetings.

He was also ordered to do 100 hours community service.

The B.C. Court of Appeal ruled this week that Copeland shouldn't get
off so easily and ordered him to serve his 18-month sentence in jail.

In its appeal against the sentence, the Crown argued that jail terms
had been imposed on marijuana growers in circumstances that were less
aggravating than Copeland's.

Crown counsel argued that Copeland had already been given the benefit
of a conditional sentence of two years less a day after being
convicted of robbery in 1996.

Justice J. A. Lowry agreed.