A young chareidi man stood before the Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday, 12 Adar, admitting to carrying 4,000 cannabis seeds into Israel.
The young man, from a Yerushalmi family, was convicted and sentenced to a relatively light sentence of eight months imprisonment and eight months probation.
About four months ago, the young man returned from Barcelona, Spain. He was detained at Ben-Gurion Airport and found to be carrying four bags containing the seeds. Justice Miriam Lumf found it difficult to base her actions of rulings in similar cases due to the large quantity he managed to bring into the country. However, the court ruled leniently in the case.
The defendant was represented by attorney Kobi Ben-Shaya.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
It would be interesting to know who gave him the stuff. And whether he did it to make money of his own accord, or whether someone he trusted said “do me a favor, take this package of chocolates/diamonds etc. to my family back home.”
If he was a drug smuggler, he wasn’t Hareidi in any way besides looks.
“cannabis seeds”
Very confusing when one sees in the media all this talk about legalized marijuana (in multiple westner countries) and then this article about cannabis seeds . Was the problem that cannabis seeds is illegal or was the problem “smuggling” (not paying import duty)?
It is wrong that this should even be a crime. The criminalization of vice does not end or even reduce it. All it does is enrich gangsters and the public officials they own. Drugs do harm some people and they should be regulated but criminalization does exceedingly more harm than the drugs.