DEALER'S ADDICTION LED HER INTO DRUG RING

A taste for methamphetamine led a 27-year-old woman into the heart of
a sophisticated drug operation -- and later into the prisoner's box of
a Regina courtroom, where she was sentenced to a two-year
community-based sentence for drug trafficking.

Portia Nichol, 27, pleaded guilty on Thursday to two counts of
possession of drugs for the purpose of trafficking and one charge of
simple possession.

"I'm giving you a chance to continue with your rehabilitation, and I
suggest you seize this opportunity to keep continuing to turn your
life around ...," Court of Queen's Bench Justice Ian McLellan told
Nichol, in granting the defence request for a community-based
sentence. "Do positive things."

Nichol was one of several people involved in a well-organized cocaine
and methamphetamine trafficking ring in which drug dealers worked
scheduled shifts, had designated cellphones and vehicles and received
commission for the amount of "product" they sold.

The organization was busted in November 2004.

Wilson Trinh, the then-21-year-old man who set up the organization and
supplied it with drugs from Calgary, was sentenced on Wednesday to
51/2 years in prison.

Another young man, David Grant Wall, who colluded with Trinh to set up
the organization and headed the local operation, was sentenced in
April to six years in prison.

While Nichol was not one of the key players in the drug operation,
Crown prosecutor Ralph Ottenbreit said she was caught on a police
wiretap organizing large drug purchases and brokering sales between
customers and other sellers, and was more than just a low-level trafficker.

Given the seriousness of the drugs involved and the scope of the
operation, Ottenbreit argued for a jail term to be served in a
correctional facility.

But defence lawyer Gene Josephson requested a community-based
sentence, noting Nichol has a good education, a solid work history and
only one unrelated previous criminal conviction.

He said she was not trying to profit from her involvement in the drug
organization, but was supporting her own addiction to
methamphetamine.

"She wasn't there to feed off other people's addictions, because she
was an addict herself and was trying to feed her own addiction," he
said.

She is now off meth and is rated as a low risk to reoffend.

Josephson told court Nichol comes from a loving family and had a
normal upbringing, but got caught up in a lifestyle she found exciting.

"That lifestyle, unfortunately, proved to be her undoing," he
said.

McLellan accepted defence arguments for a community-based sentence,
noting Nichol has made great strides in rehabilitating herself and
becoming a contributing member of society.

"I see no useful purpose in putting her in jail," he
said.

The first nine months of Nichol's two-year sentence will be spent
under electronic monitoring and she will be subject to a curfew for
the entire period.

She will also have to do 100 hours of community service and attend
substance abuse programming, possibly in a residential facility, and
attend weekly meetings for recovering addicts.