A drug dealer caught with pepper spray said he bought it from the shopping website Wish to display at home.
Ryan Cunningham was arrested when police stopped his dad's car and found him with a rucksack full of cannabis.
Officers then searched his home and found more drugs and a capsaicin canister - commonly called pepper spray.
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But the 26-year-old was today spared jail after a judge accepted he had bought the illegal weapon to display in a glass cabinet and not to protect his drug supply.
Liverpool Crown Court heard police pulled over the car, which was being driven "at speed" by Cunningham's dad, on Stanley Road in Bootle, at around 6.25pm, on October 13, 2020.
Rebecca Smith, prosecuting, said officers spotted the bag containing cannabis next to Cunningham in the footwell of the front passenger seat, along with two mobile phones.
They then searched Cunningham's home in Emery Street, Walton, where in a cupboard they found a mature and flowering cannabis plant.
They also recovered more cannabis in a jar, snap bags, another phone, seeds, digital scales, £30 in cash and the pepper spray canister.
The court heard in total he was caught with 251.81g of cannabis, valued by police at between £2,528 and £3,773.
A police expert said the plant would also have produced an additional yield, which then could have been sold on.
Cunningham was arrested and interviewed, when he admitted the cannabis was his, but denied he was a dealer.
Ms Smith said: "He accepted the canister belonged to him. He said he hadn't understood it was an illegal item at the time of purchasing it.
"He said he had purchased it from an online website called Wish."
The court heard Cunningham's mobile phones were analysed and found to contain "flare" type messages advertising drugs for sale.
One text said: "Active all day Jungle cake 20 to 10 proper smoke mad deals 20s Q half only, kosher drugs, Orange Cream..."
The judge, Recorder Simon Killeen, said the messages showed Cunningham had been "selling to his friends to cover his costs for some time".
Cunningham, who had no previous convictions, pleaded guilty to possessing cannabis with intent to supply and possessing a weapon for the discharge of a noxious liquid.
Recorder Killeen said he had read a pre-sentence report and asked: "Why did he buy the pepper spray?"
Simon Christie, defending, said: "There was a display cabinet showing pen knives and items like that.
"It's a curiosity. There is nothing on his record or anything else to suggest even with pen knives any fulsome interest in their use.
"Just as sometimes people have things as horrendous as grenades on display - deactivated obviously - an interest, but no intention of using it to harm anybody."
The judge said having read a pre-sentence report he was "minded to draw back from an immediate custodial sentence, reflecting his character and the nature of the offending".
Recorder Killeen told Cunningham it was "quite clear" he had been selling cannabis in the autumn of 2020 to friends "to cover your own costs", but being in the dock should make him reflect how seriously this was treated by the courts.
The judge said normally people might say pepper spray was "the sort of thing somebody may use or have with them to protect their supply".
However, he said: "I'm satisfied in your case while it's an aggravating feature, it was in the house.
"You didn't have it with you at the time you were stopped and for that reason it doesn't warrant in any way a consecutive custodial sentence."
Recorder Killeen handed Cunningham an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, with a 15-day Rehabilitation Activity Requirement and 150 hours of unpaid work.
He warned: "I don't want to see you again in a dock in a crown court Mr Cunningham."
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