Smithton Gary Orders jailed after selling cannabis confectionery

Gary Gregory Orders, 34, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court in Burnie to trafficking in a controlled substance and a range of other drug offences.

He was sentenced on Monday afternoon by Justice Robert Pearce to a 10-month jail term, but the judge suspended six months of the term for a period of 15 months.

Orders' offending was discovered in September 2020, when he was pulled over on the Bass Highway at Smithton by Tasmania Police officers.

Justice Pearce told the court Orders tested positive for amphetamines, and was found with quantities of cannabis, methylamphetamine and 33 cannabis gummies.

A warrant was issued to search Orders' Smithton home where more illicit substances and drug paraphernalia were found.

When Tasmania Police searched his phone they found evidence of two years of correspondence relating to the sale of cannabis and the gummy bears.

The judge said that over a two-year period to September 2020, Orders had sold an average of two ounces of cannabis per week including 54 ounces which he had grown and harvested himself.

The court heard he sold cannabis for about $200 per ounce, and had therefore netted about $41,000 from the trafficking operation.

That figure did not include return from the jellies which Orders sold for $5 each.

Justice Pearce told the court Orders had initially begun growing cannabis for personal use, but his operation expanded when others began making requests.