Prison for second Sarnia drug dealer in mysterious cartoon-shaped fentanyl bust

Another Sarnia man is heading to prison for several years for his role in the mysterious discovery of chunks of fentanyl pressed into cartoon-like molds Sarnia police found during a drug raid.

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Sarnia police issued a warning to residents one year ago after its vice unit found the molds – greyish-black shapes appearing to be a teddy bear, a house and a pig, among others – during a raid of homes on Devine and Martin streets the discovered approximately $74,000 in drugs.

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“Disguising fentanyl as something innocuous, such as cartoon characters, creates safety concerns if the fentanyl is mistaken for something less deadly or, if in the hands of children, it may be mistaken for candy,” police said in an Oct. 17, 2022 , news release.

Sarnia police held a news conference a couple of days later to highlight the dangers of their discovery and their bewilderment.

“We’ve never seen anything like this,” Det.-Sgt. Mike Howell said at the time. “This is a new development.”

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That, to his knowledge, also includes other communities across the province, he said.

Officials connected to the case still weren’t sure why the drug dealers made the molds or had them in their possession. One of them, 41-year-old Sarnia resident Ian Jackson, was sentenced in June to four years in prison.

“It’s not something that we’ve been seeing in Sarnia and it’s more perplexing as to why they were in that form at all,” federal prosecutor Brian Higgins said at the time.

The strange shapes were brought up again recently as Jason Low, a 37-year-old Sarnia resident, was handed seven years in prison. Superior Court Justice Russell Raikes said the molds posed a significant risk.

“And not just to adults, but to children,” he said. “These drugs can kill.”

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But they weren’t the main focus of Low’s lengthy sentencing hearing. Instead it was Low’s past criminal record, rife with drug- and trafficking-related convictions, including in 2013, and how he keeps getting caught doing the same thing.

“It’s like wash, rinse, repeat,” Raikes said.

The judge told Low, an addict trafficker, there are people willing to help him, but he has to take the lead otherwise he’ll keep coming back to court and getting longer sentences.

“Doing what you’ve been doing is not a winning formula,” he said. “You can change.”

Low, standing in the courtroom’s prisoner’s box, spoke for several minutes directly to the judge, becoming emotional at times as he apologized to the court and the community.

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“I do feel responsibility for the harm I’ve caused,” he said. “I wish to be a better person and I’m going to work to be a better person.”

Low, who pleaded guilty to possessing fentanyl and possessing methamphetamine for the purpose of trafficking, was sentenced to four years in prison. But he also received an additional three years for another set of trafficking-related convictions from a couple of years earlier. He had just shy of two years in pre-sentence custody shaved off the seven-year total.

Low’s sentencing concluded the cartoon-mould fentanyl case. Two other Sarnia residents between ages 58 and 65 were also arrested during the Oct. 12, 2022, raid, but both men have now been cleared of all charges.

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@ObserverTerry

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