Daniel Richard Johnson (32) ordered the class B drug online after an application he made to a medicinal cannabis clinic for a legal prescription went unanswered.
He appeared before the Royal Court yesterday where he was sentenced to 120 hours of community service for two counts of importing drugs.
Advocate Julia-Anne Dix, defending, said Johnson’s probation report showed at the time of his offending he had an outstanding application for a legal prescription.
She said there was a backlog for these prescriptions, and ‘because of that he stupidly decided to purchase drugs off the internet’.
‘He fully accepts this was wrong and he has paid a very high price,’ she said.
Johnson now has a medicinal cannabis prescription, which Commissioner Julian Clyde-Smith, presiding, said meant he was at a low risk of reconviction.
The court case came as pro-medicinal cannabis campaigners Charlotte and Billy Caldwell arrived in Jersey as part of a nationwide tour.
In 2019 Billy, who is autistic and epileptic, became the first patient in the UK to be prescribed medical cannabis in a case that made headlines across the world.
In Johnson’s court mitigation, he said cannabis helped keep him stable and calm, and he had been smoking heavily at the time due to difficult personal circumstances.
His online purchase was seized by Jersey Customs on 26 November last year after being sent to his then home address in St Helier.
An officer found the stash – comprising 55 grams of herbal cannabis and a bottle of purple ‘THC syrup’ – inside a pack of nappies.
Crown Advocate Sam Brown, prosecuting, said Johnson pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and had given a ‘candid’ interview at the police station. He said that the prosecution accepted Johnson’s version of events.
Johnson told officers he had ordered the cannabis, but did not know what the THC was. The defendant said that ‘they give you freebies when you order’ and he had been expecting some edible cannabis, not the class A drug.
A police drugs expert said it was ‘conceivable’ the THC could have been a free sample, according to Advocate Brown.
Advocate Dix said a custodial sentence would have had a damaging effect on Johnson’s family, and he had ordered the drug to alleviate difficult personal circumstances.
In a letter of remorse he sent the court, Johnson said he would ‘never do something like this again’.
Several letters of support from family and friends were also provided to the court.
