POT GROWER GETS TWO YEARS AS B.C. JUDGE 'UPS THE ANTE'

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has handed a marijuana grower a two-year
jail term, eight times the sentence sought by the Crown, saying it's
time for the courts to start ``upping the ante'' to address the
increasing problem of pot-growing operations in residential areas.

Such operations become the target for home invasions and put innocent
people at risk, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Allan Stewart concluded
during his sentencing of Jason Sean Neubert, 30.

Stewart added that the community can't wait for a political solution
to deter marijuana growers.

``To me, the problem that now confronts this community in early 2000,
falls into the category of something where we cannot wait for a
top-down reaction or solution,'' the judge said. ``Change must start
here at the trial level.''

Stewart rejected the Crown prosecutor's request for a three-month
sentence for Neubert, who was found with 131 marijuana plants in a
Vancouver house. The offender was convicted of producing a controlled
drug and possession for the purpose of trafficking.

``It is this accused's bad luck that he is the one that has been
singled out for the purpose of upping the ante,'' Stewart noted,
adding: ``Once you engage in unlawful conduct, you lose the right to
whine.''

The judge said he realizes the B.C. Court of Appeal may disagree with
the sentence.

The sentence was imposed during an oral judgment last Jan. 26 but a
transcript of the reasons were only posted this week on the B.C.
Supreme Court home page on the Internet.

Doug Jevning, the lawyer representing Neubert, recently filed a
sentence appeal in the B.C. Court of Appeal.

Neubert, who is married with a small child and had been living in
Winnipeg last year, tried at his trial to convince Stewart that the
pot plants were of such poor quality that he planned to give some to
people with AIDS.

The judge rejected that submission, noting the important issue was
that the grow-operation was the target of a home invasion the night of
Nov. 21, 1997.

``Now, those home invasions, as they are called, which are actually
the very bad preying on the merely bad, put at risk anyone in the
house under attack, the neighbours, and the police who must respond to
any such home invasion,'' the judge noted. ``Where there is an
unlawful drug operation there is cash present or the expectation that
illegally obtained cash will be present. That is a fact of life.''

Stewart sentenced the accused to two years less a day in order to
punish and deter the accused, denounce the offence, and, of
over-arching importance, attempt to deter some individuals who might
otherwise build an unlawful marijuana-growing operation in a
residential neighbourhood.

The defence had cited a 1997 court case involving a marijuana-growing
operation where the same judge imposed a $3,600 fine and no jail time.
But the judge noted things have changed since then.

``I believe the court must react to the plague of home invasions that,
as of late, threatens the lives and safety of people living in British
Columbia, not just by dealing harshly -- and properly so -- with those
convicted of being, in effect, the home invaders, but by dealing with
those who, for their own selfish interests, set up an unlawful drug
operation of any kind in a home in a residential neighbourhood. . .
.''

The sentence goes against the trend in the trial courts, especially in
provincial court, where those convicted of operating marijuana-growing
operations usually receive fines and no jail time.

Last fall, The Vancouver Sun published the results of an investigation
into the sentences given to marijuana growers in Vancouver provincial
court over the past three years. Only one in five of those convicted
was sentenced to time in jail. Most (58.3 per cent) received a fine --
on average $2,700.

Police are worried that marijuana-growing operations, once amateur
efforts in basements, are increasingly being set up and operated by
violent members of organized crime.