A Willow River woman has been sentenced to an eight-month conditional sentence for growing marijuana in her home without first securing a medical marijuana licence from the federal government.
Deanna Vanessa Wiley, 31, was issued the term in Prince George provincial court Wednesday after RCMP uncovered 99 plants in her home - 32 of them mature - when they acted on a tip in October 2012.
Wiley was issued a licence less than three weeks later but that was too late.
"If you had done things by the book, you wouldn't be here today," judge Randall Callan told the woman prior to sentencing.
A physician had granted her a prescription to use medical marijuana to deal with the effects of a car accident and a stomach ailment. The amount she was growing was not enough to make it a commercial size operation, the court was told.
Wiley will be able to use marijuana because it's prescribed medicine but conditions of her sentence include abstaining from alcohol as well as a curfew. A conditional sentence means she will serve the term at her home, rather than in jail.
In May, another provincial court judge sentenced a Prince George man to nine months in jail for growing more marijuana than allowed under the licences he held. However, in that instance, nearly 400 plants were seized from a 500 block Alward Street duplex.
When first approached by police, the man, James Henry Mackean, claimed he had four licences, but it turned out two were in the name of people living in the Lower Mainland and had not yet been transferred to the Prince George address.
