Inmate caught bringing enough drugs into Barton jail to knock out 3,000 full-grown elephants

A young Hamilton man has been sentenced to a decade behind bars for attempting to smuggle a dangerously powerful opioid that's been used as a chemical warfare agent into the Barton Street jail.

Shawn Atkinson was handed a ten-year prison sentence last week after being caught with more than 25 grams of carfentanil - a tranquilizing agent used on massive animals - while being brought into custody at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre in May 2021.

The 20-year-old pleaded guilty to one count of possession for the purpose of trafficking.

It is not an exaggeration to say that bringing carfentanil into the jail is the equivalent of bringing a bomb into the jail," Ontario Court Justice Michael Wendl wrote in a decision released Jan. 19. It has the possibility of harming a significant portion of the inmates and staff."

Indeed, carfentanil is one of the most, if not the most," dangerous drugs available, Wendl added. It is 100 times more potent than fentanyl and has been used as an agent of chemical warfare," he noted in his decision.

The animal tranquillizer used on livestock and elephants has never been approved for human use.

(N)ot only does carfentanil pose a significant risk of overdose to the inmates that use it, but it also poses a risk to all inmates, whether or not they use it, and the custodial staff since trace amounts can kill."

While Wendl likened the smuggling attempt to bringing a bomb into the facility, veterinary expert Nigel Caulkett went a step further.

Not just a bomb, but a nuclear bomb," Caulkett, head of the department of veterinary clinical and diagnostic science at the University of Calgary, said in an interview.

Caulkett, who has no connection to the court case, said the drug is so dangerous that once it appeared on the illegal market for human use, it was no longer approved for standard veterinary use.

I haven't used it in years," he said. Ever since these ultra-potent opioids have appeared on the street we can no longer regularly access them for the type of work we used to use them for."

That work, in Caulkett's case, involved male bison that weighed up to 2,220 pounds. He said a bison could be immobilized for hours with as little as two millilitres of carfentanil delivered via a dart gun.

And we were also using a diluted form of the drug," the professor noted. When it was prepared, we had to make sure people had full coveralls, gloves, eye protection, face shields.

Even a tiny amount of that powder, even if it's inhaled or touched, it can very rapidly get into your body and kill you."

What about 25 grams worth of it?

It is absolutely staggering the potential harm that amount could have on humans."

Caulkett said 25 grams of carfentanil - which looks and feels much like table salt - could anesthetize about 3,000 full-grown elephants and 5,000 male bison, or almost half of the free-ranging bison in Canada."

To calculate the potential toll on humans, Caulkett said he took a crack at the math using the thresholds of its less-potent cousin, fentanyl.

We know fentanyl is lethal at about two milligrams, and we also know carfentanil is about 100 times more lethal than fentanyl," he explained. With 25 grams, it has the potential to be lethal for thousands to tens of thousands of people."

Besides the potential harm to the broader Barton jail population, Caulkett said the person smuggling the drug should also consider himself lucky he was caught.

Atkinson secreted carfentanil into himself," according to the court decision, which didn't specify exactly where or how it was stored.

Caulkett said if any tiny amount" of the opioid leaked out of a bag, for example, and became exposed into the system, then it would leave them at a massively high risk of death."

Justice Wendl noted in his decision there is very little legal precedent for carfentanil sentences in Canada, much less Ontario.

Atkinson, the decision noted, was 18 at the time of the offence, came from a troubled background and had mental health issues. He also showed remorse for his actions, pleaded guilty and has good prospects for rehabilitation.

But Wendl said in balancing those factors against the strong deterrent message this court needs to send in relation to bringing such a murderous substance into such a vulnerable setting," he ruled the sentence had to be at the high end."

Sebastian Bron is a reporter at The Spectator. sbron@thespec.com