Online Reporter
Dalyn Chigwizura
A GWABALANDA man is counting the cost of growing weed in his backyard after he was slapped with a five-month jail term for cultivating 126 dagga plants.
Michael Silas (23) from the high-density suburb was dragged before Western Commonage magistrate Archie Wochiwunga, who didn’t go easy on him.
On the first charge of possession of a sachet of dagga, Silas was sentenced to 30 days behind bars. However, the real trouble came with the second charge of cultivating dagga without a permit.
“The court sentences you to nine months’ imprisonment. However, four months are suspended for five years on condition you do not commit a similar offence,” said Magistrate Wochiwunga.
Silas will serve an effective five months in the slammer, all thanks to a tip-off that led police to his “herb haven.”
According to prosecutor Audrey Kufandikanwe, the ganja garden bust went down just after midnight on 16 May 2025. Luveve police stormed Silas’ cabin and found him fast asleep, with dagga on top of his wardrobe and a sachet inside it.
When pressed about the source of the weed, Silas took officers behind his home where 126 dagga plants of varying sizes, some as tall as a metre, were thriving in a hidden garden.
“He failed to produce any license or permit authorising him to cultivate such plants,” said Kufandikanwe.
The plants were uprooted, seized and weighed in the presence of Silas at the Bulawayo Post Office before he was taken into custody.
Sidumisile Mabena