Friday March 11, 2022
Drug user activists commemorate January overdose deaths by distributing a safer supply of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine.
Unending drug poisoning deaths across BC and Canada has prompted yet another demonstration of the importance of community-led safe supply initiatives.
Vancouver, BC - Drug user activists once again distributed safer heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine to commemorate the British Columbians who died of overdose in January 2022. This collaborative action by the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) and the Coalition of Peers Dismantling the Drug War (CPDDW), took place yesterday at a closed meeting for CPDDW members. By giving away safer drugs, the CPDDW and DULF continue to demonstrate the life-saving potential of a community-led response to the overdose crisis.
These distributed drugs were tested via mass spectrometry, FTIR spectrometry, and immunoassay, and are free of fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, benzodiazepines, and many other harmful adulterants.
This action follows the BC Coroners Service Death Review Panel release of its “Review of Illicit Drug Toxicity Deaths” on March 9, 2022, which underscored the importance of a non-medicalized compassion club model.
This distribution also coincides with a fourth follow up letter to the Federal Minister of Health in regards to our Section 56 Exemption to run a Cocaine, Heroin, and Methamphetamine Compassion Club and Distribution centre. To date, Health Canada has neither met with DULF nor addressed our exemption request, and it has ignored three letters dated October 6th 2021 and November 2nd 2021, and December 2nd 2021.
About Drug User Liberation Front
Formed in response to the ever-mounting overdose deaths in British Columbia and across Canada, the Drug User Liberation Front looks to provide tangible solutions to this devastating crisis. We are an organized collective of people who use drugs, empowered to make change through direct action, courage and conviction, and fueled by the memories of the countless friends, families, and loved ones whose lives have been taken by an unjust, broken system of laws and policies. https://www.dulf.ca/
About CPDDW
The CPDDW exists to change policy and empower people who use drugs, both by filling systemic gaps in healthcare provision, and through long-term systems change. We seek to reclaim knowledge has been stolen from drug users and then used by the Canadian Healthcare System in inadequate and damaging ways. Indeed, after many disappointments in our attempts to work within the medical industrial complex, we have lost faith that the current healthcare regime supports drug user’s involvement in a meaningful or non-tokenistic way. To this end, we seek to collaborate with existing drug user-run institutions in an attempt to battle the current ramifications of what we have dubbed “the Crisis of Prohibition”. www.cpddw.ca
About the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users
The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) was formed in 1998 to bring together groups of people who use drugs. VANDU is committed to increasing the capacity of people who use illicit drugs to live healthy and productive lives. We do this by affirming and strengthening people who use illicit drugs to reduce harms both to themselves and their communities. Vandu@vandu.org