A 60-year-old Dromore man was sentenced Tuesday in P.E.I. Supreme Court to serve 18 months in the provincial correctional centre after pleading guilty to a charge of possession of Dilaudid for the purposes of trafficking.
The sentence was imposed in the case of Alan Garfield Waite.
Waite was sentenced to a further term of one month in jail for illegal possession of the drug Diazepam.
He received a further sentence of two months in jail for unsafe storage of a firearm.
All sentences will run concurrently.
Upon completion of his sentence Waite will spend the next 18 months on probation, during which time he must undergo assessment, counseling and treatment, if necessary, for his use of alcohol/ and/or drugs and/or any other underlying issue that might have contributed to the commission of these offences.
P.E.I. Supreme Court Justice Ben Taylor also issued an order of forfeiture for $2,660 found at the home of the accused and imposed a weapons prohibition.
The charges against Waite stem from a raid conducted at his home in Dromore by police acting on tips that illegal drugs were present in the house and were being sold.
Upon arrival at Waite's residence the police found several hundred hits of Dilaudid in various bottles.
They also found more than 300 hits of Oxypan and more than 300 hits of 2 Diazepam.
Other drugs were also found on the premises.
Police seized copies of bank drafts and money orders.
A loaded 12-guage, pump-action shotgun was also found by police.
Waite told police the gun was kept loaded and accessible in the event his animals were attacked by coyotes.
The Dilaudid Waite was charged with having in his possession for the purposes of trafficking had a street value of more than $12,000.
The court was told the Dilaudid was obtained in P.E.I. with a prescription issued to a friend of the accused who formerly lived in P.E.I. but now lives in another province.
Waite would forward a number of the pills to the man to whom the prescription was issued and keep the rest.
Some of the pills he used himself, some he sold, and some he traded with people for other drugs, like marijuana.
In passing sentence Taylor noted that Dilaudid, a derivative of morphine, is a highly addictive drug which ruins the lives of many people who choose to take it for non-medicinal purposes.
He said the quantity of Dilaudid issued to the prescription holder each month would not be considered out of line for someone in the late stages of cancer suffering great pain and discomfort.
