An associate of a woman who, in a New Zealand first, was convicted last year of giving her 3-month-old baby cannabis through her breast milk has been sentenced on charges relating to the drugs raid that pointed to the mother's crime.
Aaron James Broad, 31, appeared before Judge David Cameron
in the Whanganui District Court yesterday. His associate was sentenced to six months' supervision in October 2012 for administering cannabis to a minor.
A police team, including members of the armed offenders squad, searched Broad's address on August 14 last year. They uncovered 17 cannabis seedlings, which were positioned under a heat lamp, five cannabis plants of up to 120cm in height, equipment used in the cultivation of cannabis and isopropyl alcohol for the production of cannabis oil.
Court documents indicate the 22 plants could have yielded up to 3.7kg of cannabis worth $46,200. But Judge Cameron accepted no money-making was associated with the growing operation.
Broad's lawyer, Roger Crowley, said his client had cultivated the cannabis and extracted small amounts of its oil for his own use.