A drug dealer with a years-long record of relatively small crimes found that trafficking in fentanyl was a “whole new ballgame,” according to a judge.
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BRANTFORD – A drug dealer with a years-long record of relatively small crimes found that trafficking in fentanyl was a “whole new ballgame,” according to a judge.
Geoff Adam Wardle, 45, became the target of a police investigation on New Year’s Day this year and, on Jan. 2, police raided his Colborne Street motel room.
Officers found fentanyl, MDMA, and methamphetamine in the can, along with drug-packaging material, four digital scales, a debt list and almost $2,400 in cash. Wardle was arrested and charged, along with a youth who was in the motel room at the time.
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“Your record doesn’t help you sir,” Justice Ronald Minard said, referencing Wardle’s two decades of low-level criminal history.
“Dealing fentanyl is a whole new ballgame. The Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal have made it clear: dealing with fentanyl calls for penitentiary sentences. It’s a life-destroying, soul-destroying drug that has wreaked havoc in Ontario and across the country for years now.”
Fentanyl is a hyper-potent synthetic opioid that’s been implicated in overdose deaths across Southwestern Ontario. It’s 100 times more powerful than morphine and as little as two milligrams of it, the equivalent of four grains of salt, can kill a first-time user.
His defence lawyer, Ian McCuaig, said Wardle had become enmeshed in the drug subculture as a young man working in the oil fields of western Canada, where there was lots of money.
“It was the wild west and he discovered cocaine and has struggled with an addiction every since. Alcohol has also played a factor in his life,” McCuaig said.
McCuaig added it was Wardle’s first conviction for trafficking and he had been largely selling drugs to support his own addiction.
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The lawyers in the case proposed a three-and-a-half-year sentence that would be an increase from any previous punishments and get him to prison, where he might be rehabilitated through counselling and other resources.
“That’s the difference between Canada and other countries,” McCuaig said. “We never give up.”
The judge commended Wardle for owning up to the crimes and quickly pleading guilty.
“But the federal penitentiary is not a fun place,” the judge said. “We’re told drugs are available there if you want them badly enough but, hopefully, that won’t be your story.”
Wardle was given credit for his almost 200 days in jail awaiting trial, ordered to submit a DNA sample and is restricted from having certain weapons for the rest of his life.
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