A 40-year-old farmer who told Acting Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson that it was his God-given right to plant cannabis was ordered to pay a fine of $20,000 and serve four years imprisonment when he appeared at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court.

Frank Daniels of Karosaima Creek, North West District, pleaded guilty to the charges of cultivating a prohibited plant and possession of narcotics for the purpose of trafficking.

He admitted that on October 24 at Karosaima Creek, North West District, he cultivated the prohibited plant cannabis and he had 814 grammes of the plant in his possession for the purpose of trafficking.

When questioned by the magistrate why he had planted the cannabis, Daniels told her, “I have a right from God to grow all herbs that gah seeds and on the face of the earth they should be allow fuh grow.”

He said further “ah plant it because it raises me up.”

The magistrate then informed Daniels that the offences carried imprisonment along with a fine and  he responded, “Ow please, I is a poor man, a father and a grandfather and I gah do something fuh live.”

Prosecutor Deneashwar Maindranauth told the court that the police acting upon information received conducted a search at Daniels’s farm where they observed the cannabis plant which was about 5-7 feet in height being grown among some cassava plants.

The police then searched the entire farmland where they discovered a camp owned by Daniels and upon closer inspection they found another quantity of cannabis.

Daniels was then arrested and charged.