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Man convicted for trafficking

Andrew Raven
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (July 20/05) - A Yellowknife man who tried to mail $400 worth of marijuana to his girlfriend in Nunavut pleaded guilty Tuesday to drug trafficking.

Matthew Brown, 25, said he was surprised the ill-fated mailing constituted trafficking, but admitted: "I knew it was wrong."

Workers for a Rankin Inlet-based airline handled a suspicious package - bound for Chesterfield Inlet - last February, Crown attorney Jonathan Burke told the court.

RCMP opened the box and discovered 39 grams of marijuana, which has a street value of about $400. They eventually traced the package to Brown, a machine operator who has been living in Yellowknife for two years.

He explained that his former girlfriend travelled to Chesterfield Inlet last Christmas and asked him for a shipment of marijuana. His girlfriend pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance in Nunavut.

"While this was not for commercial purposes, this was still a serious offence," said Burke.

Defence attorney Kelly Payne said Brown did not realize, legally speaking, that he was trafficking drugs although he "certainly should have known."

Territorial court judge Brian Bruser fined Brown $800 and said he was not a typical for-profit drug trafficker.