‘Stick to pansies’, sheriff advises cannabis cultivator
A sheriff advised a cannabis grower to “stick to pansies” – and ordered him to carry out 65 hours of unpaid work.
Jason Pottinger, 37, admitted producing a class B drug when he appeared before Lerwick Sheriff Court on Wednesday.
Procurator fiscal Duncan MacKenzie said police had asked to search the accused’s home in Marthastoon, Aith in the hunt for another individual.
Pottinger co-operated and in the course of the officers’ search they found three juvenile cannabis plants and a number of seedlings.
Mr MacKenzie applied for the forfeiture of the items seized, which Sheriff Ian Cruickshank granted.
Defence agent Tommy Allan said his client was well known to the sheriff “for his regular attendances” in court.
He said Pottinger had been battling substance misuse and addiction all his life and was currently on a heroin substitute.
He asked the sheriff to consider imposing an unpaid work order as punishment.
Sheriff Cruikshank said it was “clearly not the fist time” Pottinger had been before the court for drug-related mattes.
He told him the growing of cannabis remained an illeagal activity for “appropriate reasons”.
After handing Pottinger a level one community payback order, he offered him some horticultural advice.
“In the future, Mr Pottinger, if you have aspirations as a gardener, stick to cultivating pansies or suchlike,” he said.
