Just 2g of cannabis brings jail

IT MAY only have been 2g of cannabis, but when you’re on parole for similar offending it makes for a far more serious penalty as Toowoomba man Robert Lindsay Rowe has discovered.

The 44-year-old appeared in Toowoomba Magistrates Court on Tuesday to plead guilty to possessing 2g of cannabis, electric scales for weighing drugs and clip seal bags for carrying them found during a police search of his North Toowoomba home on June 24.

Magistrate Graham Lee noted Rowe was subject to six months of parole imposed by the same court earlier this year and if he was sentenced to a jail term he’d have to be given a parole eligibility date, meaning he would serve out the full six months before the Parole Board heard his application for release on parole.

Rowe’s solicitor Michael McElhinney told the court the father of four was on a disability pension due to a chronic knee injury.

Mr Lee sentenced Rowe to six months in jail but ordered the whole term be suspended for 18 months and placed him on 18 months probation to include random drug testing.