Parolee handed chance to quit habit

HAVING started smoking marijuana at age 10, a 28-year-old Toowoomba man has been given 12 months to kick the habit or risk jail time.

Robbie Mitchell Zdral appeared before the Toowoomba District Court to plead guilty to nine counts of supplying a dangerous drug, one of possessing marijuana and to having drug-related utensils.

The charges stemmed from a police search of his home in October last year, prosecutor Cameron Wilkins told the court.

Police downloaded Zdral’s mobile phone on which were found text messages that appeared to relate to drug deals of small amounts of marijuana and some “ice”, he said.

However, defence barrister David Jones pointed out that police would not have been able to decode those text messages without his client’s co-operation and confessions.

Most of the text messages related to offers of potential supplies and only one was an actual supply of marijuana, he said.

Mr Jones said his client instructed that the deals were between three people who supplied to each other.

His client instructed that he had started smoking marijuana at age 10 but since his arrest had weaned himself off the drug from daily use to that of once a week or fortnightly, Mr Jones submitted.

His client realised that he would be drug tested while on parole and any positive test would most likely see him sent to jail, he said.

Judge Tony Rafter SC accepted the offending was “low level dealing” and sentenced Zdral to 12 months in jail but ordered he be released on parole immediately.