The extent of a 16-year-old boy’s drug enterprise operated from his parents’ Dalkeith mansion has been revealed in court as the teenager was sentenced for selling his schoolmates gummy bears laced with cannabis.
The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was arrested in August after school teachers searched his bag and found the drugs which had led to the hospitalisation of another 16-year-old boy and his girlfriend.
The 17-year-old appeared in Perth Children’s Court on Friday.Credit: Lauren Pilat
The teenager denied he had sold the drugs, but later confessed after police searched his home and found items in his bedroom revealing a “significant drug operation”.
The blue gummy bears were sold for $35 and the teenager’s bedroom contained eight jars of cannabis, resin, smoking implements, digital scales, a grinder, silicon moulds, supplements and liquids, as well as a pot and stove.
Police also located a diary containing details of expected yields and costs of running the business, and a found a supermarket receipt for the purchase of gelatin from a bin outside the house.
During the boy’s sentencing in Perth Children’s Court on Monday, prosecutors argued a supervision order – which would mandate drug and mental health counselling – would be an appropriate punishment given the offence involved “a commercial drug operation”, and would send the message to other teenagers about the seriousness of such offending.
But the boy’s lawyer, Paul Yovich, argued the 16-year-old “got a fright” when he found out his customers had been hospitalised after consuming one of his gummies and that the involvement of the police brought home the seriousness of what he had done.
“All of those have provided a powerful deterrent affect”, Yovich said.
The magistrate agreed, and the teenager was given a community-based order for five months, noting she believed the teen had taken the matter “very seriously” and instigated his own rehabilitation.
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