Two unsuspecting Mormon missionaries ended up in hospital after
eating about 12 freshly baked cannabis cookies in 10 minutes
during a home visit.
Tom Pettit and Andrew Housley, both 19, called at a house in
Mount Waverley in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, to see "Doug",
who they had met a week earlier on the street.
About an hour after cycling home - and taking more chocolate
cookies with them - the men began to shake uncontrollably, lost
sight and blacked out momentarily.
One was so affected he
thought the illness was being caused by a gas leak in their
house and called the fire brigade.
Mr Pettit, a US citizen in Australia as a missionary for the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, told Dandenong
Magistrates Court yesterday that "Doug" had given them his
phone number and address and expressed an interest in the
church.
On May 19 the missionaries spent more than an hour talking to
"Doug" and two of his friends at their house before eating the
cookies offered to them.
Douglas Lynch, 40 and Alexander McLean, 47, are pleading not
guilty to charges including recklessly causing injury and
introducing a drug of dependence into the body of another.
Mr
Lynch is pleading guilty to cultivating narcotic plants,
possession of cannabis and use of cannabis.
Mr Housley told the court he noticed drug paraphernalia in the
house and saw a man known only as Steve smoking cannabis.
Towards the end of what "was a good visit", the court heard
that Mr McLean had brought a plate of 30 or so cookies about
the size of a 20 cent coin to the table and offered them some.
"We were offered the cookies, we took two or three of them," Mr
Pettit said.
"We were asked how we liked them and we were told, `Go ahead
have some more, don't be shy'. It would have been extremely
impolite if we didn't," he said.
Mr Housley said that during their visit, Mr McLean was in the
kitchen baking what he said was a new recipe of "American
Chocolate Cookies".
After they got home, Mr Pettit said, "a feeling came over my
body, of course I have never experienced before".
He said: "Throughout my whole body I was shaking
uncontrollably. There was obviously a gas leak, that's the only
thing I could relate it to."
Mr Housley said the Mormons evacuated the house and were
treated on the footpath by paramedics before being taken to
hospital. Tests showed they were suffering from cannaboid
intoxication. The hearing continues.
