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A Provincial Court judge has ignored a B.C. Court of Appeal directive and given a 21-year-old dial-a-dope fentanyl dealer a suspended sentence with three years’ probation instead of jail time.

The Crown argued there were no special circumstances, and Ajay Joon of North Vancouver deserved two years less a day in prison.

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Photo by Malcolm Parry / Vancouver Sun

Judge Joanne Challenger’s decision to spare the rod undercut the tough-nosed message of the appellate justices, who wanted much stiffer punishment to protect the public in face of the deadly opioid epidemic.

She insisted she was not “minimizing the very grave consequences flowing from the presence of fentanyl in our communities and the continuing tragic loss of life it is causing,” calling pushers “Merchants of Death.”

In March, a three-justice appeal division unanimously concluded in a decision known as R. v. Smith that first-time fentanyl dealers should be incarcerated for 18 months and up to three years or more unless there were extraordinary circumstances.