Hundreds march in support of safe supply following arrests of 2 Vancouver drug activists

More than 400 safe supply supporters gathered in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside Friday to protest the recent arrests of the founders of the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF), which had been distributing a safe supply of illegal drugs in an effort to prevent overdose deaths. 

Vancouver police raided the group's office and other addresses last week and arrested Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum, saying the organization had publicly admitted trafficking illegal drugs.

The group's website says it provided 43 active participants up to 14 grams of substances that had been tested for safety — including cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine — each week, distributing a total of three kilograms of drugs "at cost."

"The climate to harm reduction and safe supply has been getting increasingly hostile over the years," said drug user activist and podcaster Garth Mullins on Friday as he walked with protesters down Hastings Street behind a banner calling for action on the toxic drug crisis.

Some protesters carried a cardboard coffin to represent the more than 13,000 people who have died of toxic drug poisonings since B.C. declared a public health emergency in 2016. 

Dozens of people in Victoria also gathered on the steps of the B.C. Legislature in support of DULF.

On Oct. 26, police announced that multiple search warrants had been executed in an ongoing investigation into DULF.

Inspector Phil Heard, commanding officer of VPD's Organized Crime Section, said at the time that although DULF was trying to reduce harms caused by toxic drugs, "we have always warned that anyone who violates the Criminal Code or the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act could face enforcement and criminal charge."

CBC News has reached out to the VPD to ask for an update on the investigation. Online court records don't show criminal charges against either Kalicum or Nyx. 

Life-saving work, say coroner, supporters

Safe supply efforts have drawn criticism from some doctors, researchers and politicians, including federal Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre, who say the strategy encourages drug use and that resources should be focused on treatment and recovery services. 

Those at the march on Friday said DULF's work saved lives by providing drug users with safe substances, preventing them from having to buy drugs on the often-deadly illicit market. 

A preliminary report from DULF found no known overdoses caused by the group's substances and a 50 per cent reduction in hospitalizations among participants. The preliminary conclusions have been evaluated by experts at the B.C. Centre on Substance Use.

On Wednesday, an expert death review panel convened by B.C.'s chief coroner Lisa Lapointe recommended B.C. establish and expand non-prescription safe supply programs to reduce deaths, such as DULF's compassion club model. 

The province says it's not considering the recommendation, but is working to expand prescription safe supply options.

Act of 'courage'

Leslie McBain, with the group Moms Stop the Harm, said DULF was doing work that should be done by government.

"We know that the government should be doing this, but we're so far away from that and DULF had the courage, the compassion and really the love to go ahead and do it," McBain said in an interview. 

Last year, Health Canada denied DULF's request for an exemption from Canada's Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to run the initiative.

The group had requested the same mechanism that allows supervised safe consumption sites to legally operate in Vancouver and for B.C. to pilot decriminalizing small amounts of some drugs.

The raids on DULF came after weeks of pressure from B.C. United for the government to investigate the activities of DULF, saying in a news release in September that it was "unacceptable that public money is being used to purchase illicit drugs" on the dark web.

Vancouver Coastal Health's website says the Drug User Liberation Front Society received $200,000 of public money in 2021-2022, funding which the government says has since ended.

Solicitor General Mike Farnworth said in the legislature last week that the contract was for "drug testing," not to buy drugs.

McBain, who lost her only child to an overdose, says policymakers have been slow to take the kind of action needed to keep parents like her from losing more loved ones.

"Civil disobedience is really the only way things change," she said. "We've lost kids. We're in it for the long haul here. We don't want other people to lose their kids."

Vancouver registered nurse Trevor Goodyear likened current drug laws to those that previously prohibited abortion and homosexuality in Canada. 

"Sometimes when a law isn't going to change, it's going to be broken," he told CBC's Day 6 on Thursday. "And of course when people are frustrated with losing loved ones to the drug poisoning crisis, folks are going to act and break these laws."

Scott Archondous, who volunteers in the Downtown Eastside, said drug users continue to be marginalized long after the declaration of the public health emergency.

"We're a vilified population down here," he said.

He said he's known more than 100 people that have died in the last few years, including two he tried to resuscitate after finding them overdosing in an alley.

"There's traumatic repercussions that come with that, and it just created an angry little bee in me," he said. "It's going to take legislation to actually treat drug users like human beings, to treat impoverished people like human beings."