A drywaller who turned to drug deliveries and was convicted of possession of fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking in Victoria in 2021 has been sentenced to two years plus a day in a penitentiary.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Robin Baird convicted Dana Stanly Gordon Carlson, 50, on Nov. 16, 2023.
The court heard he had turned to drug deliveries when his business dried up during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“A lot of people were negatively affected by the pandemic, and a lot of people suffered hard times, but not a lot of people go out and deliver fentanyl when they are up against it financially,” Baird told the father of seven. “You decided to make that choice and now you are going to pay for it.”
The judge said the preeminent principles of sentencing in the case were denunciation and deterrence.
“The devastating effects of fentanyl distribution and use are by now notorious,” Baird said in his February decision released April 3. “We all know what is going on, Mr. Carlson, and you do, too. Drug addicts are dropping dead all over the place from the abuse of this substance.”
Carlson’s lawyer suggested a conditional sentence, a proposal Baird rejected, citing a growing number of court cases with increasing penalties for what he called “the blight that this trade inflicts on pretty well every community in Canada.”
Warrant executed
Baird said on Jan. 6, 2021 Victoria Police Department’s emergency response team executed a warrant to search a hotel room occupied by someone called Tighson Laughren at the Chateau Victoria Hotel as part of a drug trafficking investigation.
Laughren was arrested at the scene, and in the course of their search of his room, police seized his mobile telephone. The phone was not locked and did not require a passcode to access data stored inside.
A sergeant examined the phone and found an application called Signal, one he knew was an encrypted messaging application commonly used by drug traffickers.
Opening the app, the officer found Laughren had been exchanging text messages with someone who identified him or herself by the handle “Bradpitt.”
The messages included a discussion about the delivery of fentanyl to Laughren.
Based on the messages, the officer believed “Bradpitt” was trafficking in mid-level amounts of fentanyl from the Nanaimo area.
Pretending to be Laughren, the sergeant engaged with “Bradpitt” by text message. He placed a $24,000 order for seven ounces of fentanyl, with “Bradpitt” saying a driver would deliver the drugs.
The arrest
Baird said Carlson admitted he was the driver.
He was arrested at the Chateau Victoria Hotel.
“Bradpitt” had told the sergeant his driver was driving a black truck.
When a black truck duly arrived, a team of officers closed in and arrested Carlson.
The truck was searched and, as promised by “Bradpitt,” investigators found seven ounces of fentanyl at 14 per cent purity.
“Mr. Carlson has admitted that he possessed this often-lethal substance for the purposes of trafficking, but I accept that he was merely a courier dropping off a package, and I accept that he did not know how much of the substance was in the bag or how much it was worth,” Baird said.
The judge noted Carlson was not getting a cut of the drug price but was paid to make the delivery.
“Since this supply of drugs was confiscated he has been hectored and pursued and threatened by the people who gave it to him to deliver because, of course, he ‘lost’ their product and with it a significant amount of money, or at least that is how they look at it,” Baird said. “Mr. Carlson is not himself a fentanyl addict.”
COVID-19 pandemic
Baird said Carlson had worked as a drywaller, a business that dried up when the pandemic hit, leaving him out of work, short of cash and unable to make his rent.
The judge said Carlson is remorseful for his actions.
“He has never given me even the smallest intimation that he is trying to evade responsibility for what happened,” Baird said.
The judge said the fentanyl trade has caused disaster in B.C.
“The numbers are staggering. Illicit trade in fentanyl not only destroys lives but entire communities,” Baird said. “It severely compromises the peace, the health, the sense of well‑being that should be every British Columbian's right to expect in every community in this province, and what we have instead are legions of ill and impoverished addicts in every downtown core, every town and municipality in our province.”
