Quintin Frances Corkery (37) was sentenced to three and a-half years’ imprisonment on charges of cultivating and selling the class-C drug when he appeared in the Dunedin District Court in April last year.
The Parole Board at a hearing last month heard the man was a minimum-security prisoner with no misconduct incidents to his name.
The Otago Corrections Facility inmate spoke about how his offending impacted on his family and concluded that "smoking takes his life away".
"Mr Corkery identified his high-risk situations and how he would deal with them, and spoke well to his release proposal," panel convener Mary More said.
"He told us that he has learned that rehabilitation opens a highway on his brain, and that repeating or supporting the treatment he has already undertaken will open that highway even more."
A police investigation struck its first blow to Corkery’s enterprise in July 2020 when officers found a cannabis crop worth up to $43,000 at a Sidey St home, along with $7600 of growing paraphernalia.
They intercepted his communications which showed he offered one associate $20,000 to take the blame.
When officers raided a Union St East flat a few days after the first raid, they discovered the scale of Corkery’s ambitions.
Every room of the rented property, amidst the city’s student sector, had been used for cultivation, including the roof cavity, the court heard.
In total, there were 353 plants, potentially worth nearly $500,000.
Corkery regularly discussed the cloning of mother plants and bragged of having 13 different breeds at the flat.
Intercepted conversations also found him talking about storing the drugs in a mobile food caravan he owned.
He sold more than $10,000 of cannabis in the seven months leading up to his arrest.
The Parole Board noted Corkery had a criminal record stretching back nearly 20 years, including driving convictions, weapons, burglaries and other property offences.
Ms More said his risk could be managed at the rehabilitation facility he was released to this week.
Parole conditions included. —
- To attend any treatment as directed.
- Not to possess alcohol or non-prescription drugs.
- To attend a treatment programme and abide by its rules.
- To comply with tenancy rules of accommodation provider.
