GROW-OP GUY GETS BREAK FROM APPEAL COURT

The B.C. Court of Appeal has cut in half the sentence handed to a
first-time offender who had a marijuana grow operation.

Pu Huan Su, 29, was convicted by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Allan Stewart
of cultivating marijuana and possessing marijuana for trafficking and
sentenced to two years less a day.

Su was arrested with 8 kilograms of marijuana, and police found some 300
marijuana plants at his home.

The appeal court found Stewart erred in law by applying a minimum sentence
of two years less a day for Su's crime.

Justice Douglas Lambert noted the highest sentence for a first offender
among 20 similar cases the Crown provided at the sentencing hearing was 18
months.

Lambert said it is appropriate for a sentencing judge to consider the risks
of a grow-op in a residential area poses to law-abiding neighbours.

But he found Stewart "concentrated too precisely in this case on setting
standards, setting floors and changing what he thought was the range (of
appropriate sentences), and too little on the circumstances of the
appellant," a first-time oddender.

"I would not like to endorse the view that two years less a day sets a
floor of any kind...12 months of imprisonment is the range that ought to be
in place and considered for a first offender in a grow operation of this
dimension."

Justice Tom Braidwood said:"In my opinion the sentence of one year is very
much near the low end of the appropriate range of sentences in the
circumstances of this case."