Garfield Ainsley Spence, a 24-year-old frequent visitor to the Cayman Islands, was sentenced to six months in prison after pleading guilty to importing six ounces of ganja, which is about 0.17 kilograms.[1] He brought the ganja to the island on Oct. 27.[1] Spence first told authorities he had a prescription for medical marijuana, but Crown counsel Scott Wainwright said he did not have one with him at the time and the Crown was never made aware of any.[1] A customs officer at the airport smelled ganja when speaking with him, and a search found a heat-sealed bag of it in his backpack.[1]
Spence worked as a ramp agent for an airline that flies to Cayman and did not have to buy tickets, and he visited often because he had relatives on the island.[1] Defence attorney Crister Brady told Magistrate Valdis Foldats that his client had lost his job because of the offence and that his relationships with family in the United States and in Cayman were now strained.[1] Spence pleaded guilty on the basis that the ganja was meant to be forwarded to another person, not kept for his own use.[1]
The magistrate told Spence he did not understand the offence given that he had a good job and a family, and he pointed to the planning involved: sourcing the drug in the United States, deciding how to import it and arranging someone to give it to on arrival.[1] The magistrate said the offending was almost a breach of trust because Spence had used his employment to facilitate the importation, and that his claim that ganja was legal in his home state was not true.[1] The magistrate said a prison term was needed to deter others, starting from one year for six ounces, reduced to nine months for Spence’s previous clean record and then by a third for his guilty plea.[1] Spence had been in custody since his arrest and is to receive credit for that time.[1]
