The 40% will be a correct reading for the testing regime they formulate to get an inflated reading to fuel the latest media campaign.
I thought the UK was bad read an online article of a guy with 5 plants and they hit him with the Australian version of the UK POCA law only they accepted no dealing his house and car have been frozen whilst the state sets about robbing him.
They fined him 150 for the dope and 150 for a bong and still froze his assets
E2A
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/t...abis-dragnet-for-mr-bigs-20150622-ghuc2m.html
When the West Australian government introduced the Criminal Property Confiscation Act in 2000 to target the Mr Bigs of the cannabis trafficking trade, the small fry who grew a few plants in the backyard for personal use were probably never in its sight.
Yet more than a decade after the act - commonly known as proceeds of crime - was passed, it's the small fish that have been caught in a legal dragnet which was meant to hook the big players.
For motor industry worker Dave, from Forrestfield, the discovery of five marijuana plants grown in his vegetable patch in his backyard now have him branded a drug trafficker and will cost him his house, his car, a confident future and a lot more.
"It's going to wreck my life,' he told 6PR's Mornings with Gary Adshead on Monday.
"As far as travel, employment, yeah I feel like I am going to be like a homeless person on the street.
"It's the biggest mistake I've made in my life."
How Dave came to be charged as a trafficker with five plants came down to how the plants were weighed – with soil, roots and stems in addition to any portion of the plant deemed useable.
The initial weight of the five plants came in at 31 kilograms. Amounts over three kilograms are considered trafficking. Dave's useable amount was weighed at 2.9kg.
"I've absolutely no idea [how five plants weighed 31kg].
"As far as I know they weighed all the sand and the roots and of course I've only just pulled it up so there's the water content as well.
"Later on we got it analysed and it came to nine kilograms in total and 2.9kg of that was smokable."
Dave said he began growing his own cannabis for personal use after working in the mines and developing anxiety and "sleep depression".
"I found that smoking cannabis, I got some relief from it and then I just decided to grow a bit in among my vegetables in the backyard and then I had a visit [from the police].
"They told me my neighbour saw me pulling them up."
Legal representative Shash Nigam from the Australian Lawyers' Alliance said Dave and other backyard growers were not the intended targets of this legislation and discretion not to proceed with trafficking charges could have been applied.
"Probably the most important element of this particular matter is the fact that the state can see there was no commerciality to Dave's cannabis," Mr Nigam said.
"They [the court] accept that there is no commerciality, they accept that the overwhelming majority of the cannabis was for him to use and he may have supplied one or two mates who would have come over on the odd occasion and they'd smoke together.
"The perverse thing about this is - the bizarre thing is - they're actually asking for a drug trafficking declaration in a matter in which there was no [drug] trafficking.
"They always have discretion – [with confiscatable offences that carries imprisonment 2 years or more].
"There's always got to be discretion when it comes to these types of matter. They [police] have got quite extraordinary powers."
At his trial Dave received an 18-month suspended sentence, $100 in court costs and a $150 fine for possessing a bong.
A freezing order has been placed on his mortgaged house and car.
Dave said he had all but given up hope of winning any appeal which could be a lengthy experience that could ultimately end up as a full hearing in the High Court.
"I just can't afford it," Dave said.
