A Warwick man was fined $500 after police discovered cannabis during a raid on his home.

Police executed a search warrant on Roderick Butler’s home on Cross End Lane on the morning of November 29 last year and found 4.18 grams of the drug in the top drawer of a dresser.

In Magistrates’ Court today, duty counsel Kenville Savoury pointed out that Butler was severely stressed at the time because his father had died while on vacation overseas and his mother had suffered a heart attack.

Mr Savoury suggested that a conditional discharge would be an appropriate sentence “in light of the prevailing attitude to small amounts of marijuana for personal use”.

But Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner said he did not want to get into “a political row”.

“Possession of drugs remains illegal in this country,” he told Butler.

“Your mitigation is that you were using this as a sedative. You should get some of the legal stuff.”

Butler replied that he had not drank alcohol for more than four years but Mr Warner replied: “The police and the courts must enforce the law. Enforcing the law involves financial costs, so every time someone decides to break the law, they may not think it’s a big thing but the police have to do their job and it’s a cost on the budget.”