An Indian national working as auditor in Singapore has been jailed for six months for smoking banned drug cannabis, local media reported today. Karan Vijay Chetan, 25, was arrested in August last year along with a group of others suspected drug users from an apartment, The Straits Times reported. Defence lawyer Subhas Anandan told the court that Chetan suffered from epilepsy and had taken the cannabis believing it would ease his condition. But Deputy Public Prosecutor Seraphina Fong pointed out that Chetan had been smoking cannabis regularly since February last year. Being an educated man, he should have known about Singapore’s harsh anti-drug penalties, Fong said.
Announcing the verdict yesterday, District Judge John Ng accepted medical opinions that Chetan was not addicted to cannabis, which could have got him a longer sentencing period. Chetan, who graduated from the Indiana University and worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers, took to the drug when studying in the United States. He gave up using the drug for about a year but relapsed in February last year. Chetan pleaded guilty to consuming the controlled narcotic and possessing a grinder with 0.21g of cannabis mixture. Both possessing and consuming of drugs carry maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of SGD 20,000 under Singapore’s harsh anti-drug laws.
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