Aucklander jailed for poisoning co-workers with weed-laced cake

  • 24/07/2018
North Shore District Court.
North Shore District Court. Photo credit: Google Maps

An Auckland man has been sent to jail after unwittingly poisoning co-workers when he brought in a cake laced with marijuana he'd grown himself.

Graham Jones, 58, was on Tuesday sentenced to 22 months' prison in North Shore District Court, after pleading guilty to cultivation of cannabis, poisoning with intent and unauthorised possession of firearms, Stuff reports.

The sentence comes after a December 13, 2017 incident, which saw eight of Jones' colleagues hospitalised after consuming a cake infused with some of his cannabis crop.

All eight had been poisoned, and one even believed they were suffering a heart attack as a result of eating the cake, Stuff reports.

Unfortunately for Jones, the poisoning incident exposed his private marijuana crop, which he'd been growing in his garden. He'd got into cultivating the drug after a cancer operation a decade prior, which had left him in pain.

Judge Nevin Dawson said in handing down his sentence that Jones had been "extremely foolish", according to Stuff.

"The victims were very vulnerable in circumstances where workmates would have had no reason to suspect there was anything wrong with eating that cake," he said.

"It is a normal thing for people to bring cakes to work and for other people to eat them."

Judge Dawson reduced Jones' sentence due to his early guilty plea.

Newshub.