[420 Girl]

BC: A Vancouver man caught red-handed watering hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of pot at a major marijuana grow op in Merville has lost the appeal of his conviction.

Piotr Kwiatkowski was convicted in May 2008 of producing marijuana after police found him tending more than 3,000 plants -- 1,056 mature plants and 2,059 clones -- inside five greenhouses on a Merville property in July 2005.

In August 2008 provincial court Judge Peter Doherty sentenced Kwiatkowski to a year behind bars followed by a year of probation.

Kwiatkowski appealed his conviction on the grounds that his privacy rights had been violated when police in a helicopter took photos of the plants inside the greenhouses using a zoom lens.

Doherty rejected the argument. He found that the use of the zoom lens, which could be picked up at a retail store, was no different that the use of binoculars or police radar on highways.

A three-member panel of the B.C. Court of Appeal upheld the ruling and the conviction.

It is estimated that the plants could produce as much as 173 kilograms of dried pot. Police also found 750 grams of dried cannabis on the property. The total value of marijuana seized is estimated at between $500,000 and $750,000.

http://www.420magazine.com/forums/in...ld-appeal.html