A South Otago man involved with several people, including his brother, in selling and supplying cannabis in the Milton area in 2012 has been jailed for 27 months.
John Douglas Taylor (32) originally faced 28 charges relating to drug dealing, including dealing cannabis oil, a class B drug.
But he pleaded guilty to nine charges - one of possessing cannabis for supply and eight of offering to supply the class C drug - and was last week sentenced in the Dunedin District Court by Judge Michael Crosbie.
Taylor was one of many people identified as a result of Operation Ceiling, an electronic interception-based police investigation targeting large-scale cannabis distribution throughout South Otago and Southland in 2012, the facts summary from Crown counsel Richard Smith said.
Analysis of cellphone data between April 30 and May 17 that year showed the defendant was in regular contact with his brother about the sale and supply of large amounts of cannabis and capsules of cannabis oil. He received regular text messages from his brother asking him to bring cannabis to his address as he had people waiting to buy.
From the text data analysed, transactions were identified which showed the defendant offered to supply his brother with at least seven ounces of cannabis and another person with at least seven ounces, the summary said.
Judge Crosbie said Taylor's sentencing had been delayed because the court needed to look at the sentences imposed on other offenders convicted as a result of the same operation. Sentencing in such cases was always a difficult exercise and ''never mathematical'', he said. But it was made more difficult as multiple people had been involved in the same operation and they were sentenced in different courts at different times by different judges.
The judge said he took into account material provided to the court by counsel Sarah Saunderson-Warner, including references from Taylor's employer, other business contacts and his mother.
Against that was the fact Taylor had been in court before for selling cannabis.
Judge Crosbie said one of the main reasons such charges were dealt with seriously was that, as long as cannabis remained prohibited, its sale and distribution was uncontrolled, which meant it could end up in the hands of the young and impressionable and the addicted.
The role of the seller was pivotal and distinguished the seller from the users, the judge told Taylor, so there had to be a sentence to specifically deter him and to provide a general deterrence to others. On each of the nine charges, Taylor was sentenced to concurrent terms of two years and three months' imprisonment.
