A MAN who turned his kitchen into a class A drug laboratory has been spared jail.
Christopher Wilson was producing his own hallucinogenic crystals, known as DMT, using foreign tree barks and chemicals at his home at Dacre Street South Shields.
Newcastle Crown court heard when police raided the property in May last year, they had to draft in specialist chemical experts to ensure the illegal compound was safe to be moved.
Kevin Wardlaw, prosecuting, told the court: “In the kitchen of the address, officers found a numbers of containers containing tree bark and chemicals.
“They were concerned about just what that was, and in due course the premises were made safe when officers were satisfied there was no risk from what the defendant was manufacturing.
“The drug was hallucinogenic, produced by boiling tree back from plants imported from foreign climes, South America and Asia.”
The court heard as well as the potion, which would have produced 19g of 19 per cent pure crystals, officers found 30 cannabis plants in a special “growing area” and more in the kitchen.
Wilson admitted producing class A and B drugs.
The court heard the 26-year-old has a history of mental health problems and used drugs to self medicate.
Miss Recorder Sophie Drake told the court: “It is unusual, to say the least.”
She sentenced Wilson to 18 months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, with supervision.
The judge told him: “I am giving you an opportunity, and I hope you take it, to break the cycle of using these drugs to self medicate and change what is a criminal way of thinking”.