Some Breaking Bad-esque news, to warm us up for the inevitable torrent of torrenting we can expect this evening: A 69-year-old Melbourne grandmother has been found by a County Court to be the one who knocks, after police discovered she had cultivated 11 marijuana plants in order to keep her family together.
Age Kolaj grew the plants in her secondhand RV Melton backyard for her sons so they would not have to buy drugs from a dealer or “pinch things”, a County Court heard today. While the crime of cultivating a commercial quantity of marijuana (of which Kolaj’s 57 kilo crop more than doubled) carries a maximum 15 year jail sentence, Judge Lisa Hannan was satisfied that Kolaj grew the drugs only for her immediate family, and due to her disadvantaged upbringing, and the abusive relationship she continued to endure, her circumstances were exceptional. “This was a very misguided attempt to help your sons and your husband
in a way in which you believed was the lesser of two evils,” Judge Hannan told
Kolaj. “You are a woman who clearly loves her family and literally did anything for them.” Kolaj was sent to Australia as a teen after being brought up in poverty
in her native Kosovo, and was married by arrangement to a man with
mental health issues. Two of her four children have a history of legal
problems and drug abuse.
Via smh.com.au
