Kelowna dealer caught asleep in car, with $50K worth of drugs

A 56-year-old Kelowna man found asleep in his car along with $49,000 worth of drugs will spend the next three years behind bars.

According to a July 17 BC Supreme Court decision, police found Nick Dubois sleeping in his vehicle in Lake Country shortly after midnight following a call from a concerned citizen.

He had a cellphone in his hand and a bat by his feet. 

A search of the vehicle uncovered 169 grams of fentanyl, 48 grams of methamphetamine, and 108 grams of cocaine, along with a digital scale, unused baggies, two cell phones, a large folding knife, a tactical knife, and over $700 in cash.

The fentanyl was found to be roughly 70% pure, indicating that it had come from a lab. The drugs weren’t packaged in street-level quantities, and Crown prosecutors argued this showed Dubois was a mid-level dealer.

Justice Judith Hoffman said it was clear that Dubois was engaged in some form of mid-level trafficking, but said there were no indications that this was a sophisticated operation.

“I would place Mr. Dubois within the lower end of the retail dealer spectrum,” the Justice said.

The defence argued that Dubois is a drug addict and was dealing to feed his addiction and was not involved in commercial trafficking.

The decision says the 56-year-old had struggled with substance use on and off for 25 years.

“Dubois has also struggled for much of his life with health problems and significant injuries which have played a contributing role in his history of substance abuse,” the decision reads.

He was in a snowmobile accident in 2000, a car crash in 2010, and was seriously assaulted in 2018.

“His injuries were treated with opiates medication, and he developed a dependence,” Justice Judith Hoffman said in the decision.

Crown prosecutors argued Dubois had numerous previous drug convictions and a criminal record dating back to his twenties, and he should do four years in jail.

The defence said that in the four years since the offence, Dubois had largely remained off substances and was doing well with his rehabilitation.

Since 2023, he’d been on opioid replacement therapy, and as part of his recovery had been volunteering his time helping others struggling with addiction.

He now lives in an apartment on his parents’ property, and helped them out.

The defence argued for 20 months’ house arrest but the Justice agreed with Crown that a fentanyl dealer can’t serve a sentence at home.

The justice said it was a “significant amount of fentanyl” and sentenced Dubois to three years’ jail.

The decision also says he was recently convicted of another drug offence but has yet to be sentenced for it.