HOUSE ARREST FOR POT FARMER

Grower Ordered To Counselling

Searching for a cure -- instead of a Band-Aid -- a Calgary judge yesterday
ordered a pot grower to go home rather than to jail.

Justice Bonnie Rawlins placed Cody Jacobson under 18 months house arrest
when he's not working oil rigs in the remote parts of Alberta.

Rawlins said the conditional sentence, which will include any recommended
counselling by his supervisor, will hopefully spell the end to Jacobson's
criminal ways.

"Mr. Jacobson, I don't ever want to see you in this court again -- this is
your chance to turn around your life ... this will probably be your last
chance," she said.

Rawlins said she was concerned that, without needed counselling, Jacobson
would be doomed to reoffend.

"While incarceration would be a Band-Aid approach, it won't cure the
problem on the streets for the rest of us," the Queen's Bench judge said.

Rawlins said the immature Jacobson, 26, needed psychological treatment in
order to overcome his problems handling alcohol and his financial affairs.

She ordered him to live under house arrest at a friend's acreage near
Okotoks when he isn't working-- only leaving for life necessities.

She said Jacobson must abstain from drinking alcohol or taking drugs and
submit to random breath and blood analyses.

And Rawlins ordered a copy of the conditional sentence order be posted at
his work camps and all bars and lounges in Okotoks and Black Diamond.

Jacobson admitted to cultivating a narcotic after police found 121
marijuana plants during a March 21, 2001 search of his Okotoks home.

The Crown initially sought a jail term of nine to 12 months.