A 45-year-old man has been given a three-year suspended jail sentence for making pizza, biscuits, butter and wine from cannabis he grew in two converted rooms at his home.
The Circuit Criminal Court in Cork was told that David Flynn of the Thatch, Glantane, Mallow, Co Cork, was not a drug dealer, but distributed the cannabis-laced products among his friends.
Flynn is a married father-of-four with an interest in cooking who ran a mobile chip van and a pizza business. He also began experimenting and cooking with cannabis.
He made biscuits, cakes, desserts and sweet stuffs, pizza, butter and cannabis wine.
He called his cookies Marakesh Biscuits and his wine Creme de Gras, while other products were called Cannon Butter and Alternative Pizza.
He printed labels with logos and distributed the food and drink among his circle of friends.
Flynn converted two upstairs rooms at his home to grow the cannabis plants himself, but gardaí raided the house last January and Detective Sergeant Michael Corbett from Mallow said they seized 20 cannabis plants as well as some dried cannabis herb.
Flynn pleaded guilty to growing and possessing the cannabis.
Since the beginning of the year, there have been more than 500 garda raids on DIY cannabis-growing operations.
Around 70 of these are sophisticated industrial-type grow houses run mainly by organised criminal gangs, but most of the raids have been on drug users who have turned to growing their own due to the economic recession.