Reg receives a Conditional Sentence
Reg had his day in court, and the Judge chose to give Reggie a conditional sentence. I have to say that the Canadian Judicial System gives criminals a lot of chances to rehabilitate themselves, and so Reggie, was fortunate to benefit from this philosophy.
“If you want to sit around and talk about your “feelings” over endless cups of decaffeinated coffee, then maybe rehab is for you”
So I returned to Talbot House and life went on pretty much as it had during the past few weeks. Several months passed and I made much progress with my illness. One of the conditions of my sentence was that I attend a treatment program at Homewood Health Centre in Guelph, Ont. This was arranged to begin on Sept. 2.
I arrived at Homewood with high expectations but I was only there for a short while before things went wrong for me. My roommate was a heroin addict, from Vancouver, only 19 years old (Steve). He and I got along great. He reminded me much of myself when I was younger, not taking life too seriously and perhaps too smart for his own good. After a few days there, he came back from a walk downtown stoned on heroin. None of the staff or other patients knew, but I did. This went on daily for about a week before he was called in for a random urine test. The next morning, I came back from my morning session and he was gone. He took off for Vancouver without telling anyone.
All the while he was using I was really confused. Negative feelings and thoughts of deviant behavior which I thought had left me over the past few months were again brought to the surface. When I tried to talk about these feelings and behavior in group I was made to feel that the way I thought was wrong. When Steve was using I talked to him and asked him to confess to his group. He said he would but kept putting it off and then he was gone. When I told the nurse that I knew he was using she made me feel like I was bad and wrong for not turning him in. Meanwhile other patients were going home for the weekend and coming back drunk or stoned. These people were not kicked out. Their reasons for using were being dealt with in group. They were not punished.
This created great confusion in my mind because it was totally different from what I saw in treatment in P.E.I. but again when I brought up the subject of relapse I was told that I shouldn’t even be talking about such a thing. I just couldn’t understand how to get along, what they wanted from me and this eventually led to an early discharge from the program. I was also continually being questioned and analyzed about my motivation, as I was technically there under the courts direction. This to me was a hurdle I could not overcome.
Now, the legal issues. I had been charged with possession of cocaine (20 grams) with intent to traffic in May of the previous year, 1997. I’ll admit that motivation to be involved with this activity was greed in the past but by this point it had become an addiction problem. I had a massive appetite for drugs, fueled by addiction, which could only be fed by the sale of drugs. (let’s say $200 - $1000+ per day spent on drugs. I was barely human, going through life like a zombie.)
(throughout this period (’92-’98)
I also owned and operated a small business, Days of Wine and Beer, selling brewing supplies. I was able to operate this quite well until brought to my knees by drugs. I’m going to skip a lot of background issues here and go straight to court. The prosecutor felt that what I had been involved in was serious enough to warrant 3-5 years incarceration. My lawyer, John Davis, was able to convince him to ask for 2 years less a day, the maximum that can be served in Provincial Jail, anything above that moves up to the Federal system.
My lawyer informed me that there had recently been an amendment to the Criminal Code allowing sentences less than 2 years to be conditional, which means served in the community with certain conditions. He didn’t seem too confident that such a sentence would be imposed on myself as my crime was serious, especially by P.E.I. standards. However, I approached Dr. Jones and asked her to write a letter to the court stating her medical opinion and the need for treatment. I also asked Inez at Talbot, and my councilor there, Frank B.., to write a letter describing what progress I had made up to that point. Both of these letters were presented to the court.
After a considerable amount of time, which seemed like an eternity to me, the judge returned from his deliberation and ruled in favor of a conditional sentence. I can’t express in words the feeling I had at that moment, but I’m glad that my wife and parents were there to share it with me.
The following are the court documents, which stated the duration of his sentence and the terms of his day parole:
Reggie was sentenced in a conditional sentence to “Two years less a day” in Provincial Jail. In this special conditional sentence, he would have the opportunity to enter a rehabilitation program at a half-way house / treatment centre. During this period, he wrote extensively, almost every day …