DRUGS HAD FLOWER POWER

Civic leaders were so impressed by a shop's floral display that they awarded
the owner first prize in the "Glastonbury in Bloom" competition, a court was
told.

It was only after police arrested the proprietor of In Harmony in Nature
that the town leaders realised that the much-admired green fronds were
cannabis plants.

The 31-year-old shop owner from Glastonbury, Somerset, was yesterday
convicted of cultivating the plants and given a 12-month conditional
discharge. He appeared in Taunton Crown Court charged under the name of Free
Rob Cannabis, after changing his name from Rob Christopher after he was
arrested.

Cannabis, who was representing himself, denied sowing the plants and said
that marijuana seeds had been planted in other floral displays in the town.
He said: "I really don't think it's a priority to arrest me for watering my
flower display.

He said the trial gave jurors a unique opportunity to send out a "clear
message that watering a flower display should not be considered a criminal act".

The jury ignored his plea and found him guilty of cultivating the 13 plants
between a date unknown and August 19 last year.

Sentencing him to a conditional discharge, the Recorder, James Tabor, QC,
said: "In this case I accept that someone else planted these drugs and you
merely tended them.

"I regard this as an example of you making a demonstration about your own
personal views."