A man who swallowed a balloon containing a large quantity of fentanyl was sentenced to time served on Friday after the Crown failed to prove he intended to traffic the drug in Yellowknife’s jail.
Even so, Territorial Court Chief Judge Robert Gorin wanted Ryan Beaulieu to dwell on what would have happened had the court ruled otherwise.
“I found you not guilty of possession of fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking. That doesn’t necessarily mean I found you innocent of that charge,” Gorin told the 27-year-old, who was appearing via video link from the North Slave Correctional Complex, on Friday afternoon.
“It means I have at least a reasonable doubt over whether you had the intention to traffic.
“If you had been found guilty of possession for the purpose of trafficking under these circumstances, I would have imposed a sentence well in excess of five years. I’ll let you think about that.”
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Earlier in the case, the court heard Beaulieu was found to have a balloon containing 20 grams of fentanyl inside his body on arriving at the jail in April last year.
Twenty grams of fentanyl is “a lot for personal possession,” the Crown had argued, calling that “enough for hundreds, if not thousands of doses, depending on how it had been consumed.”
But Gorin said that depended on the concentration or purity of the drug. The judge previously decided the Crown’s allegation of an intention to traffic was not sufficiently backed up by expert testimony.
Defence counsel Charles Davison said Beaulieu had maintained that the fentanyl balloon was for his personal consumption, to avoid withdrawal while inside the jail on separate charges.
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Addiction ‘under control’
The case became somewhat unusual once Beaulieu was acquitted of an intent to traffic.
Rarely have such cases reached judges with so-called “simple possession” of fentanyl being the main charge, rather than one tacked on to a more serious offence. Beaulieu also faced a Corrections Act charge related to possession of contraband while in jail.
Gorin agreed with the Crown’s submission of an eight-month sentence for possession, which Beaulieu had admitted early in proceedings, and a concurrent five-month sentence for possession of contraband. As Beaulieu has been in jail since April last year, that means a sentence of time served with no further imprisonment.
He’ll be on probation for a year and must take counselling and treatment as directed by his probation officer, which could include residential treatment.
However, Beaulieu’s addiction – which began while he was in a federal penitentiary as a teenager – is something his lawyer said he has been able to beat while jailed in Yellowknife.
The court heard he had completed a substance abuse program while at the North Slave Correctional Complex, worked toward his GED and Grade 10 math, finished an English course, and “appears to have the addiction under control.”
Gorin said it was “highly aggravating that Mr Beaulieu had possession of that amount of fentanyl while at the North Slave Correctional Complex. Having it put himself, other inmates and corrections officers at risk … both in terms of the drug’s potential toxicity and the potential for conflict to occur as a result of the fentanyl’s presence.”
But the judge said Beaulieu had shown “he has been able to withdraw from drug use and has successfully completed medical treatment. He has also, and I commend him very much for this, taken advantage of his situation by upgrading his education.”
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During Yellowknife’s wildfire-related evacuation last August, Beaulieu was transferred to an Edmonton remand centre. While there, defence counsel Davison said, he had access to fentanyl if he’d wanted it.
Instead, said Davison, “he said the smell alone was enough to make him sick and he wanted nothing to do with it.”
Beaulieu told the court he would consent to treatment should he need it again in future.
