Stunning volume of dope plants uncovered in welfare check of 'keen gardener'

Police were called to a Jubilee Court address in north Portland on February 26, 2024, after a neighbour raised concerns about the welfare of the 63-year-old occupant Michael Biasol.

The man, who had reportedly not been seen for a couple of weeks, was not home at the time and police went to the rear yard in an attempt to locate him.

It was there they found what a senior Portland police detective described as the biggest backyard crop he'd ever seen.

Biasol pleaded guilty to cultivating cannabis in Portland Magistrates Court on July 16, 2024.

The court heard police returned to the property with a drug warrant and seized 2483 cannabis plants weighing 46 kilograms.

Cannabis seeds weighing 3.34 kilograms were also seized.

A police prosecutor said there was a "stunning volume" of plants located at the property and if the man was trafficking the drug, he had done an incredible job not getting caught or dobbed in.

He said an adult cannabis plan could be worth up to $4000.

"For 500 to 600 plants, if they are fully grown and properly harvested, you're talking seven-figure sums of cannabis," the prosecutor said.

He said there was no evidence of the cannabis being dried out in order to be smoked, and there was nothing pointing to the drugs being anything but personal use.

"But it's pushing the upper limits of the most cannabis anyone has ever claimed for personal use in a court that I have seen," the prosecutor said.

He said police were unable to refute Biasol's claim that some plants had spawned on their own.

A lawyer for Biasol said her client was a keen gardener and the drugs were purely for personal use to help with a long-standing issue with nerve pain.

She said some 40 years earlier her client was on a push bike when he was hit by a car doing a u-turn.

She said Biasol suffered spinal injuries requiring a number of surgeries and was bed-ridden for 12 years.

"It is perhaps someone who is a little bit too good at gardening and grew too many for his own use," she said.

"No one else had access to them. It wasn't reported to police and it was purely happenstance that police came across them."

The lawyer said it was accepted the drugs were not a commercial quantity and that 51 per cent of offenders in cultivation cases received a fine.

Magistrate Franz Holzer said it was a difficult sentencing process and he needed more information on what was "quite an extraordinary case".

"It's tempting to use the word cottage garden - this is some cottage garden," he said.

"It is probably the most significant example of cultivation of cannabis that I have ever encountered."

The magistrate said he was troubled by the sheer scale of the plants.

"This is in the context of someone of your age, who doesn't have a relevant (criminal) history, and there is no evidence of purpose other than potentially private use - it just doesn't stick together," he said.

Mr Holzer deferred sentence until October 1, 2024.

"If there is any suggestion that this undertaking is for anything other than personal use, you ought to be very careful in the deferral period," he told Biasol.

"Mark myself plain."