A former North Vancouver tenant who caused an explosion with a system he was using to make marijuana resin has been handed two years of probation but will not face jail time.
Judge Joanne Challenger handed Nathaniel Ian Edward Polichek, 34, the sentence in North Vancouver provincial court last month after Polichek pleaded guilty to two drug charges: possession of both marijuana resin and more than three kilograms of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking.
Polichek’s sideline as a marijuana dealer came to the attention of police and firefighters on the afternoon of Sept. 8, 2017, when a butane system Polichek had installed to make concentrated marijuana resin, known as “shatter,” exploded in the basement of the home he was renting at 3803 Regent Ave., starting a fire.
Polichek, who suffered burns to his arms and legs in the explosion, was seen running from the home by witnesses.
He told police he was a tenant in the home, that a hot water tank had exploded and that there was a lot of butane in the house, said Crown counsel Lisa Dumbrell.
“He had been making shatter, which is essentially cannabis resin,” she said.
Polichek told police he had been off work with an injury and had been making shatter for his own use as well as “trying to make extra money while his injury was healing,” said Dumbrell.
Shatter is made by passing butane through cannabis, dissolving the active ingredients, then evaporating the gas away, leaving a honey-coloured oil that hardens into the “shatter.”
That system can be dangerous, however, if any butane escapes because it is odourless, can pool in low-lying areas and can ignite from pilot lights of hot water tanks, furnaces or other sparks.
In the case of the Regent Avenue explosion, it took firefighters three hours to put out the fire.
Afterwards, police searched the home under warrant and discovered a marijuana extraction lab in the basement, with equipment including a vacuum drying oven, canisters of butane, and extractor with marijuana bud and packaging materials, said Dumbrell.
Over 12 kilograms of marijuana “bud,” and 494 grams of cannabis resin were also seized.
An expert put the value of that at between $50,000 and $150,000, depending on how it was packaged, said Dumbrell.
The fact the operation caused a fire in a residential neighbourhood means “it was a very serious offence in terms of the circumstances,” said Dumbrell.
Dumbrell said she took Polichek’s lack of criminal record and co-operation with police into account as mitigating factors.
“He was self-medicating and decided to take it a step further,” she said.
Defence lawyer Danny Markovitz said Polichek had been buying marijuana balms to help with the pain of his injuries but “they were quite expensive. He decided he was going to try to do them himself.”
Polichek has never been involved in anything similar, Markovitz added, saying his client is “someone who made a mistake.”
Polichek, who has since moved to Surrey and is back at work, told the judge he does not use drugs and had only been using the resins to help with pain relief.
He added the explosion left him with “really bad burns.”
“You’re lucky you’re not dead,” the judge told him.
She handed him a suspended sentence plus two years’ probation. For the first nine months of the sentence, Polichek must abide by a curfew between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. except with written permission of his probation officer.
He must also complete 75 hours of community work service and pay a $400 victim surcharge fine.
