David Bruce Lunn was given a two-month suspended prison sentence by the ACT Supreme Court yesterday after pleading guilty to manufacturing the drug in his Griffith public housing unit two years ago.

The 49-year-old, who has been on a disability pension for 10 years, concocted the mixture by crushing his prescription painkillers and heating them with other substances.

The court heard Lunn made the home bake from MS Contin pills because it provided more effective relief from his chronic back pain than the tablets in their pure form. But he claimed not to know the practice was illegal.

A pre-sentence report tendered to the court stated that two people with whom Lunn had made the drugs had died, but it was not clear whether their deaths were linked to heroin.

Lunn admitted to police that he sometimes exhausted his monthly supply of tablets early and bought extra pills from other people at a cost of $50 each.

Some of the drugs used as raw material were prescribed by David Prosser, who was subsequently stripped of his licence to practise medicine by the ACT Health Professionals Tribunal over his prescribing of opiates to known addicts. The court heard yesterday a packet of 60 MS Contin tablets was $4.90 for pension cardholders.

Police arrested Lunn in September 2007 after monitoring his phone calls and text messages for almost three months.

Between June 15 and September 12 that year, they intercepted more than 2500 exchanges in which Lunn and others spoke about MS Contin, doctor appointments, chemists, cooking and mixing up pills.

According to the statement of facts, police found Lunn in the process of manufacturing heroin when they swooped on his Stuart Flats unit on September 5.

The empty oven was on, the kitchen tap was running and there was a small ladle in the sink. Police seized MS Contin pills, syringes and drug-making paraphernalia from the unit.

They also took scrapings from around the stove and oven, which were later found to contain traces of heroin and morphine.

More than 40 syringes found in the kitchen garbage bin also showed traces of the drugs.

In the Supreme Court yesterday, Justice Hilary Penfold said she would have given Lunn a six-month suspended sentence were it not for his guilty plea and willingness to testify against his associate.

She imposed a 12-month good-behaviour order, instructing Lunn to only consult one doctor about his pain.