#parent | #kids | #parents | #teensvaping | ‘Absurdly obvious’ teen drug dealer handed a suspended sentence


A TEENAGE drug dealer who sold pot out of a hotel room “in an absurdly obvious and blatant way” and “did not believe cannabis laws were relevant” has been handed a suspended sentence.

Quito Washington, 18, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court to supplying a commercial quantity of cannabis and supplying cocaine to a child.

The court heard Washington and his girlfriend booked a hotel room in Woods St where he stored the drugs before using a messaging app to run a cannabis delivery service in August last year.

When police raided the hotel room they found between $30,000 and $40,000 worth of cannabis, more than $2000 worth of cocaine and $11,750 in cash.

In sentencing Washington to three years jail, suspended immediately, Justice Anthony Graham said while “the offences were committed in an absurdly obvious and blatant way” it was still a commercial operation.

“I was told in submissions that he was naive,” he said.

“This may be so but on the other hand, he showed some entrepreneurial skill at the age of 18 years in setting up a commercial cannabis business.”

Justice Graham said a psychiatrist’s report revealed Washington had been drinking a carton of beer, smoking up to eight grams of cannabis and taking up to 10 caps of MDMA and up to 15 Xanax tablets per day since the age of 16.

“This is almost impossible to believe, that he is still with us, if that is correct,” he said.

“But even if it is substantially correct, it shows that there was a significant ingestion of a cocktail of substances, which must raise very large warning signals.”

Other reports tendered to the court showed that despite Washington’s substance abuse, he denied he had a problem and “did not believe cannabis laws were relevant”.

In suspending the sentence, Justice Graham warned Washington this was “effectively your last chance” and if he reoffended he would be locked up.

He said Washington was a “young man with promise who is at a fork in the road” and had now “had a taste of prison and it seems that he does not enjoy it”.

“There is no doubt that this is an intelligent young man and if he was to change his ways, he has a good future,” he said.

“If he continues on his present path, as I indicated before, he will finish up as nothing more or less than a drug-addled criminal.”

Originally published as ‘Absurdly obvious’ teen drug dealer handed a suspended sentence





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