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Two Canberra men accused of importing cocaine had no intention of selling the drugs and every gram they got hold of "was going straight up their noses", lawyers told a court. Christopher Johnston, 26, and Paul James McCauley, 24, were charged with importing a marketable quantity of cocaine from Thailand in November 2014. They pleaded not guilty and faced trial in the ACT Supreme Court. The pair were arrested after they allegedly collected a package containing the drugs that police had delivered to McCauley's grandmother. Police said they had intercepted phone conversations between three men and believed Johnston had arranged the drug importation. The prosecution argued the pair intended to peddle 49 grams of cocaine seized to buyers in Canberra, while defence lawyers for the men said they were two drug-addicted young men who wanted to use it all themselves. In his closing submissions to the jury, federal prosecutor Robert Barry said a police witness had valued the drug stash as having a maximum street value of $21,000. The drugs could have been sold for $250 to $350 a gram and the purity was significantly higher than that of cocaine generally sold in the ACT, which he said would have been a powerful incentive for the men to buy it cheaply overseas and sell it. Johnston's barrister Steven Whybrow, instructed by Sharman Robertson Solicitors, said thousands of text messages and phone intercepts used as evidence in the trial had revealed no evidence of the alleged drug deal. "He was a terrible coke addict, frankly. Every gram of cocaine that comes in was going straight up their noses." "This is a guy who can't get enough coke, this is a guy who, once he gets coke, he uses coke." Mr Whybrow said the men had "good stuff, cheap stuff" and were chronic users. "They were chipping in, equal shares. They were going to party, they weren't going to sell it." In giving her directions to the jury, Justice Hilary Penfold said there was no dispute about any elements of the drug importation charge faced by the men. But there was a defence available to the pair if it was proved the men neither intended to sell the drug, nor believed the other was going to sell it. McCauley's barrister James Lawton said the jury was presented with "really a single issue case" and could have been convinced by the evidence of the Crown case alone that the men weren't going to try to sell the drugs. "What was pretty clear is that these were two men who were using coke a heck of a lot at this time." Mr Lawton told the jury the defendants were "amateur" sellers of cocaine. "This was a group-buy, everyone was chucking in to buy this cocaine for their own use. "They were not importing this cocaine for any other reason than to put it up their own noses." Mr Lawton also dismissed the prosecution's suggestion that the potential benefits the men would have gleaned from selling the cocaine was enough for them to risk McCauley's grandmother getting involved. "It doesn't make sense to implicate granny," he said. "It's more indicative of two guys, especially my guy, being desperate enough to put their granny at risk to get cocaine." The jury will continue its deliberations on Friday.