Australia: Easy prey’: How state of WA took a man’s house over five cannabis plants – What Are West Australia’s 2 Cannabis Senators Doing To Help?

What surprises us most about this story is not the downright immorality of the WA Govt who are quite happy to steal this individual’s home when it is blindingly obvious he’s not profiting from the sale of cannabis, more shocking is the fact that there are two cannabis senators in the WA parliament who are quite happy to pronounce on a range of subjects they know little or nothing about but when an issue like this rears its ugly head the response ( if there is one) is reactive to what has happened rather than proactive .. Once again very disappointing

Lets’s start with Senator Hon Sophia Moermon. 

Here’s her Facebook page where she appears to spend more time talking about vaccine mandates rather than cannabis regulatory reform and no mention of Kenneth Williams’s legal issues

https://www.facebook.com/SophiaMoermond

Remember though she wasn’t the only Senator elected on a cannabis ticket there’s also the Hon Dr Brian Walker who has in the last hour posted the story on his facebook and we are glad to say that he is being forceful in his comments.

It is still disappointing though, that the Senator is reacting to a press report rather than being the political voice behind that report

Walker posts the following comments

All the McGowan Government needs to do to fix this is to support my Bill amending the Misuse of Drugs Act to allow judges a free hand, but fairness and equity are clearly not priorities for Labor in this space.
Put into context – what we are witnessing is legalised immorality. This is just not acceptable in any civilised society – that a man should lose everything for the modest crime of trying to improve his health. Disgusting and unacceptable. The criminal act is confiscation.

https://www.facebook.com/BrianWalkerMLC

WA Today reports.

A 65-year-old man from Perth’s working-class suburbs faces losing the modest home that is his only retirement asset under Western Australia’s extreme and outdated ‘proceeds of crime’ confiscation laws.

Kenneth Williams bought his house in the south-eastern suburbs 21 years ago and was paying it off legitimately, well before his crime of growing five cannabis plants in his shed. The mature plants were to make cannabis butter for what he says was medical reasons.

Kenneth Williams, pictured, and his Camillo home seized under criminal confiscation laws.
Kenneth Williams, pictured, and his Camillo home seized under criminal confiscation laws.

The state has not acted on a former chief justice’s 2019 recommendation to overhaul the archaic laws now out of step with the rest of the nation, something prominent lawyer Tom Percy recently labelled “one of the most disgraceful things that the McGowan government hasn’t done”.

WAtoday can reveal that according to the Auditor General, police and prosecutors have targets to seize large numbers of ‘proceeds of crime’ assets annually with potential bonuses for exceeding them. The Department of Justice, however, denies there are targets.

Mr Williams claimed the plants police found in 2016 were for butter to manage side effects from medication for Hepatitis C, and eight small cuttings were to pay back the grower who lent him the set-up.

“It was going to be something that I could just put in the fridge,” Mr Williams told WAtoday.

“I [wouldn’t] have to worry about chasing people to get marijuana off them.”

Mr Williams admitted to police that he had grown cannabis in his shed and given some away, which led him to pleading guilty to one count of cultivating a prohibited plant with intent to sell or supply in 2017.

An Armadale magistrate fined him $3500 and $169 in court costs.

Mr Williams says he was unaware of the potential consequences of admitting to an offence that fell under the Criminal Property Confiscation Act.

“Here I am making one bloody mistake, and I’m getting crucified for that,” Mr Williams said.

“I’m just easy prey.”

Source:

https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/easy-prey-how-state-of-wa-took-a-man-s-house-over-five-cannabis-plants-20220223-p59z5i.html

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