A man found in possession of more than a kilo of cannabis had grown it himself to subsidise medication prescribed for his back pain, the Bendigo Magistrates' Court heard on Monday.
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Andrew Hall, 52, pleaded guilty cultivating a narcotic plant, possessing cannabis and possessing a prohibited weapon after the Central Victorian Response Unit executed a search warrant on his home on May 5 this year.
The court heard police had been alerted to cannabis growing at Hall's house when an officer went there to retrieve property belonging to his son, and seeing plants, took photos.
On April 20, when the search warrant was executed, officers found a cannabis plant, two bags of cannabis - one containing 879g and the other 200g - and a glass jar containing 9.8g of the drug.
They also found a black-handled flick-knife on the coffee table.
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According to the prosecution, Hall denied the knife was his and wouldn't say who owned it but had otherwise made "full and frank" admissions, telling police he had been tending to a single plant for four months and was growing the cannabis for personal use.
Defence lawyer Damien Pitts argued that his client's prior criminal history was "dated" and emphasised that he had been found with only a single plant.
While it was "a pretty big plant obviously" there was no suggestion of there being a trafficable quantity of cannabis, he said.
Mr Pitts told the court Hall was a qualified roof tiler whose work life had been truncated by a traumatic car accident in his early 20s that left him with serious back pain.
Hall had made the decision to augment his prescribed analgesics with cannabis, Mr Pitts said, partly because of the side effects of the prescription drugs.
His client had told him the bust had been "a good thing in a way" because it had helped him reduce his cannabis use, and Mr Pitts proposed Hall be required to undertake education to help him with pain management as a condition of a good behaviour bond.
Magistrate Russell Kelly fined Hall $500 and ordered the drugs and knife be forfeited.
"It's up to you what you do about your pain management," he told Hall.
"You're not Robinson Crusoe when it comes to that sort of thing but it's still illegal."
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