Getting High On Window Cleaning

Skegness, UK: A cannabis farmer who grew almost £250,000 worth of the drug in the belief it would be legalised has been jailed for six years today. 'Obsessive' Steven Green, a window cleaner was so sure the law was about to change he spent hours inventing equipment to market in readiness. He hoped to make his fortune from a tailor-made hydroponics system and a threshing machine he invented to harvest cannabis leaves.Lincoln Crown Court heard how cannabis plants were recovered when police raided Green's home in Friskney in March last year. Just four months later officers returned and found 11.2kg of cannabis, worth £28,000, said Christopher Geeson, prosecuting. Cannabis plants with a potential yield of a further 99kg - worth up to an estimated £247,000 were also found, the court was told. Green claimed he grew the plants simply to develop his inventions and denied he ever intended to supply the drugs to anyone else. But at the end of a trial a jury convicted the 33-year-old, of Halfway Cottage, Main Road, Friskney, of possessing drugs with intent to supply. He had earlier admitted charges of producing cannabis, illegally possessing cannabis and amphetamine and illegally abstracting electricity. Passing sentence, Judge Michael Heath told him: "Your defence was a work of fiction and an insult to the jury's intelligence. "You set up a sophisticated cannabis-growing operation that was in effect a cannabis factory. That was clear from the amount you produced. "Philip Bown, defending, said Green worked as a window-cleaner by day but became 'obsessed' about cannabis away from his job. He told the court: "He comes across as an intelligent but rather eccentric individual who saw business opportunities in various aspects. "He thought he could market the electrical devices and the shredding machine. He thought he could sell them when cannabis became legal. "He added: "He now presents as a very chastened and rather defeated man who considers at the moment that his life is almost at an end. "He is clearly capable of using his skills to a proper ability. Hopefully in the future he will use his ability to devise machinery in a lawful way."