In a packed auditorium at McGill University in Montreal on June 26, Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) cofounder Eris Nyx spoke of the lives lost while waiting for the government to effectively respond to the overdose crisis. DULF’s punk ethos is about direct action—as a human rights emergency unfolds amid an escalating housing crisis and a collapsing health care system, there’s no time for slow bureaucracy.
“DULF emphasized material action over symbolic performance,” Nyx said. “And we should serve as a reminder that direct aid and grounded organizing often achieve more than idealistic posturing or policy wish-testing.”
British Columbia first declared the opioid-involved overdose crisis a public health emergency in April 2016. In 2020, faced with the province’s inaction, DULF began distributing pure heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine to 52 pre-screened members of its compassion club in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The neighborhood has been disproportionately impacted by the crisis, and from the beginning its residents have responded with strong grassroots harm reduction organizing.
In August 2021, DULF applied for an exemption from Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA), requesting access to a CDSA-licensed pharmaceutical supplier and authorization to distribute the supply through its compassion club. Despite unanimous support from Vancouver’s city council, Health Canada denied the request.
DULF had also submitted a separate application for exemption as a drug-checking site and overdose prevention center (OPC)—which Health Canada did authorize.
In March 2023, Nyx and DULF cofounder Jeremy Kalicum requested a judicial review to contest Health Canada’s decision to deny them authorization for distribution, which remains pending. Health Canada could grant DULF the exemption retroactively, but has not yet issued a response.
But overdose deaths continued to rise, and so DULF continued to distribute a safe supply of drugs.
Then, in October 2023, Nyx and Kalicum were arrested. Eventually both were charged with three counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking, which carry life sentences as the maximum penalties. The Montreal event was one of eight stops on a national tour to raise money for DULF’s legal aid fund.
DULF’s trial is set to take place between October 6 and January 30, 2026.
Nyx and Kalicum have filed a constitutional challenge with the BC Supreme Court, which may ultimately go to the Supreme Court of Canada. DULF’s legal approach invokes Sections 7 and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They argue that not providing a safe supply to people at risk of overdose infringes upon Section 7, which guarantees life, liberty and security, and Section 15, which guarantees equality under the law and protection from discrimination.
DULF is leaning on the medical recognition of substance use disorder to support the necessity of access to safe supply, when the unregulated street supply that people currently have access to is killing them.
At least 52,544 people across Canada died of opioid-involved overdose between January 2016 and December 2024. Fentanyl was involved in 74 percent of those deaths. In 2024, the country saw an average of 20 people each day die of opioid-involved overdose. In BC, First Nations people died of overdose at 6.7 times the rate of other residents, despite a decrease in overdose deaths overall. The fatality rate among First Nations women was 11.6 times higher than that of non-First Nations women in the province.
Québec, meanwhile, recorded its highest opioid overdose mortality rate since 2017, with 67 percent of the deaths involving fentanyl.
“We couldn’t have done this program anywhere but Vancouver,” said Nyx. “Because of how dug-in the harm reduction infrastructure is and because of how much democratic organizing is done.”
“Since we’ve closed down, three people have died,” Nyx said. “One person is currently in prison.”
DULF used an extensive screening process for eligibility in its compassion club. Around 30 of the compassion club members regularly used DULF’s safe supply, which Nyx and Kalicum sourced from the dark web. The contents were then confirmed through forensic drug-checking services provided by the University of British Columbia. No one in the compassion club died while using DULF’s safe supply. Three members entered abstinence-based recovery.
The drugs themselves were purchased entirely with money from crowdfunding campaigns. But the drug-checking and other operational costs of the OPC were covered through a CA$200,000 contract with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, which was originally supposed to be in effect from October 2022 through March 2024. The health authority ended the contract shortly before Nyx and Kalicum were arrested in October 2023.
“Since we’ve closed down, three people have died. One person is currently in prison,” Nyx said. “The ramifications of just cutting everyone off this program were extremely severe.”
Nyx, a former renters’ rights campaigner, drew a parallel between treating dopesickness and treating alcohol withdrawal through the managed alcohol pilot programs that have operated with government support across Canada. Participants in these programs receive doses of alcohol at regular intervals, and set personal goals around use and reduction.
She also spoke about DULF’s forthcoming research on hospitalization rates as well as drug pricing and demand in the Downtown Eastside, and called for more studies in the same vein.
“It’s the volatility in this drug supply that is killing people,” Nyx said.
In January 2023, BC decriminalized small quantities of opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine and MDMA. It essentially ended that policy in May 2024, amid political backlash and a shift away from harm reduction by governments across Canada.
In February, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau launched the Canada-United States Joint Strike Force aimed in large part at fentanyl trafficking, with an investment of $200 million. Kevin Brosseau has been appointed commissioner of Canada’s Fight Against Fentanyl, a title widely referred to as “fentanyl czar.” The US has long had a “drug czar,” at the helm of its Office of National Drug Control Policy, but for Canada such a position is new.
The Canadian Liberal government elected in April campaign on a platform that promised stronger crackdowns as part of a $1.3 billion border-security plan. The government committed to listing transnational drug-trafficking organizations as terrorist entities under the Criminal Code. Its strategy for fentanyl interdiction parallels what the US had become familiar with under the administration of former president Joe Biden.
But harsher enforcement has never decreased the drug supply, only made it more dangerous.
Fentanyl purity in the unregulated supply might be 5 percent one day and 50 percent the next. Overdose is made more complex and dangerous by other adulterants, particularly benzodiazepines like etilozam and bromazolam.
“It’s the volatility in this drug supply that is killing people,” Nyx said.
Top image of safe supply distribution via Drug User Liberation Front. Inset graphic via Montreal Ask A Punk.
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