A Somerset man's claim that diabetes would kill him unless he was allowed to continue smoking cannabis carried no weight in Magistrates' Court.

Dimitric James was fined $2,000 and his roommate Trenton Tankard an additional $2,000 after officers found seven marijuana plants growing in their Scotts Hill Road home. Both men pleaded guilty to cultivating the drug.

The charge carries a maximum ten-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine.

James, 35, insisted it was required as treatment for his diabetes. "Without it I would shrivel up and die," he told Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner. "The medicine that the doctor prescribes to me is way out of my price range. I have been using marijuana and other things to treat my diabetes for ten or 12 years now.

"It is the main part of my treatment and I have been using it to slow down the disease's progress. I have read literature from all over the world about marijuana as medicine and it is the main part of my treatment."

Crown counsel Cindy Clarke told the court that Police entered the defendants' Somerset premises last May 6 acting on a tip that there were drugs on the property.

A search found two white pots containing four live plants and a cigarette pack filled with marijuana seeds in James' bedroom and two white pots with three more plants in Tankard's room.

Tankard, who has previous convictions of marijuana possession in 2000, 2002 and 2003, said: "I am sorry for what I have done. I do not want to see the inside of a court or Police station again. I have turned my life around."

James insisted that doctors would have amputated his fingers were it not for his marijuana use. "We are poor people and we do our best to get by," he said. "The Police didn't take the aloes and other things that I infuse with the marijuana for treatments."

Replied Mr. Warner: "The truth is that the marijuana is not prescribed to you, you just use it because you feel it helps you. Marijuana is not legal in Bermuda and frankly that is the end of this matter. If you use marijuana no matter the purpose and you come before this court, you will be dealt with accordingly."