It’s been a few months since Peter Krykant’s passing in June, at the age of 48. He hit the global harm reduction scene with a bang. The story of him running an unauthorized overdose prevention site from a van in Glasgow, after years of inaction from the Scottish and British governments, catapulted him into the spotlight.
Krykant’s knack for public speaking and passion for helping people transform their lives were already clear from his past work and advocacy in Alcoholic Anonymous. But his campaigning became more urgent as he continued to see too many people hurting and dying around him. With British drug policy infamously resistant to change, he took action. He knew that something needed to change to keep people alive. Not in a few years, not after lengthy data collection processes, not after a shift in political priorities—now.
After running the van for as long as he could with donations and savings—he was arrested for it in 2020, though the charges were ultimately dropped—Krykant’s activism went global. He fought for harm reduction over drug prohibition, and for community support, mutual aid, and radical love and care among people unfairly criminalized for how they live their lives.
His work was recognized worldwide, amplifying harm reduction’s reach. Richard Branson congratulated him, he had politicians volunteering at the van or condemning his arrest, and he even met the Queen. Besides Filter and TalkingDrugs, he was covered in Al Jazeera, Sky News, the BBC, the Guardian multiple times, the Daily Record, the New York Times, Vice, Pharmaceutical Journal, the Conversation, the Times, Big Issue, and many, many more.
Peter Krykant didn’t wait for the right time: He seized moments, attention and opportunities to make things happen.
Whether in text or multiple times on TV, he spoke with powerful authenticity on issues where he had deep lived experience—ranging from the overdose crisis and the drug supply to homelessness and tobacco harm reduction.
Krykant’s activism was imperfect—just as grassroots activism always is, by necessity. The van had issues, didn’t drive well and needed repairs—but it was good enough to work. He struggled with balancing everything, but always gave his full heart to support those around him. He traveled the world sharing his experiences—including the barriers he faced.
After his sudden death, even British politicians joined the flood of global tributes, mourning his loss and recognizing the life-saving value of his actions.
Peter Krykant didn’t wait for the right time: He seized moments, attention and opportunities to make things happen. Often, you can’t predict how things will change when you take action. You only know that if you don’t take action, nothing will change.
Below are some tributes and recollections from people who knew him well.
Photograph via X
Gillian Shorter
Reader at Queen’s University Belfast, who led evaluation of Krykant’s van
I met Peter through Twitter, asking if he and his volunteers needed any research support on the van. A few weeks later I had designed a data collection form, had ethical approval, and we were regularly in contact about life on the van, the clients and volunteers. We would talk semi-regularly on Wednesdays or Fridays, sometimes with his lovely family too; he loved his sons so very much.
It was an honor to bear witness to the stories of people who used the van, and how Peter and the volunteers had helped. It was undoubtedly hard and heavy work with limited resources; there were stories of despair, trauma, poverty and much frustration at systems of stigma and oppression. But there were also wondrous stories of hope and joy, agency, health care, love and kindness, and community. Lives were saved.
Thanks to generous donations and Peter’s family savings, many van clients got items sorely needed like new clothing/shoes, food, water and even a wheelchair. Peter won over community businesses and built trusting, respectful partnerships with clients. I’ll be forever grateful that he chose me to evaluate the first drug consumption room in the UK. What an honor it was to tell that story (with my co-authors), have those conversations with Peter, and to become friends. Please read the independent evaluation of his van here and continue to recognize and remember his harm reduction pioneering work.
A note to Krykant from a 21-year-old woman who had overdosed in the van. Photograph via X
Leo Jeffreys
Harm reduction consultant and drug-user activist with the European Network of People who Use Drugs
Peter was my friend second, and an inspiration first. Throughout my life in this vocation, I have been fortunate to share tables with people who are brave, imperfect, hilarious and loving. Peter was all of these things.
We first met in Prague in 2021, at the European Harm Reduction Conference. I had seen him earlier that day, and made a mental note to try and grab him for a coffee. Since moving to Dublin from Vancouver in 2016, I was at the mercy of watching my friends, colleagues and neighbors back home die in the thousands from preventable deaths due to prohibitionist drug policies. I felt isolated and helpless at times. My advocacy work through UISCE on the ground in Ireland and EuroNPUD at a regional level helped with this, and I had a renewed sense of determination.
Reading about Peter and his van, the first drug consumption site in Scotland and in the UK, I was inspired to start Dublin Overdose Prevention and Education (DOPE), a grassroots group focused on naloxone training and distribution in Ireland, as well as a European Naloxone solidarity group that sourced naloxone from countries that had access, distributing to those who had none. This was because of Peter. Because the bravery and actions of one can inspire so many.
Peter and I did officially then meet in Prague after a conference session where we both walked out of the room, along with another colleague who would become my friend and comrade, Magdalena Harris. We walked out because for three presentations in a row in that one session, the same graph of rising drug deaths was displayed and discussed like those lives were numbers on a page. Cold, clinical and without compassion. The three of us found each other in the hallway, in tears, and in comradeship.
Peter’s passing is for me not a loss but a challenge to a renewed stronger sense of hope. As his family said at his memorial gathering, it’s up to us to carry his legacy, and for me to be a part of that is an honor. RIP my friend.
“Peter made his own phrase: ‘Drugs are not forbidden because they are dangerous, they are dangerous because they are forbidden.”’
Aura Roig
Director of Metzineres, a nonprofit cooperative in Barcelona providing shelter for womxn who use drugs
The first time I met Peter was in a webinar organized by Juan Fernández Ochoa. We had been invited to speak about how both of us had set up safe havens for people who, until then, had been left out of all care and support networks simply because they used drugs—isolated from their communities and families, and marked by multiple layers of violence and vulnerability: gender-based violence, racism, extreme poverty, family breakdown, criminalization, psychiatry, among others. What we both proposed was a response rooted in unconditional love and radical tenderness.
Peter made his own phrase: “Drugs are not forbidden because they are dangerous, they are dangerous because they are forbidden.” Once he realized that prohibition had made him believe his only problem was the drugs—hiding the violence, trauma, isolation, stigma, guilt and shame he had carried since childhood—he felt betrayed.
In a Scotland where families struggled to survive a social and economic crisis that left them unemployed, with little else to do but go to church or to the pub, Peter tried both: He didn’t believe in the first, and the second he enjoyed too much, though it didn’t suit him either.
Discovering harm reduction first and anti-prohibitionism later was liberating for him. For the first time, he felt free, able to transform guilt and shame into action for himself and for his people. And yet, even though he understood the theory of harm reduction, he never really managed to apply it to the substances he had learned to use to cope with his pain. Because those wounds don’t simply disappear—neither through abstinence nor through medicalized harm reduction strategies that still focus only on consumption.
Yes, when life became overwhelming for Peter, he could not find other tools to cope with his emotions or to help him navigate through them. What kept him most tethered to life were his children and his community, but in the end it was not enough.
What became clear to me during the time we walked together is that Peter was a person of action. He shone when surrounded by friends—and his friends were not just anyone, but people from all over the world, leading different responses, because we know from experience that what has been tried for decades only works for a few. To point the finger at drugs and ignore the impact that “tough love” has on people is deeply irresponsible—and deadly. To exploit families’ despair and sense of helplessness, convincing them that “hitting rock bottom” is the only way, is cruel to those of us who later have to mourn our loved ones.
Yes, perhaps it has worked for some. But we are here to grieve for those who cannot tell their story. And Peter knew that well. What saves us is community, love and mutual recognition.
Photograph of Krykant by Nigel Brunsdon
Aamer Anwar
British lawyer and activist
Peter was a force of nature who single-handedly took on the state to deliver safe drugs consumption rooms. I first met Peter as his lawyer, when he kitted out an ambulance for an illegal mobile injection unit near the High Court.
If it had not been for Peter, his single-bloody-mindedness and refusal to back down when arrested, it is unlikely that the appalling drugs deaths toll in Scotland would ever have made it to the front pages of our tabloids or the top of our political agenda.
Formerly addicted and a victim of childhood sexual abuse, Peter had once lived on the streets but channeled his pain into a force to be reckoned with. He wasn’t a professional campaigner, but his lived experience and fiery compassion for those dying through drugs allowed him to tear through the red tape.
In the last year of his life, those of us who were close to him saw his rapid descent into a hell he had tried so hard to leave behind. Sadly, it was seen as an opportunity by some to openly dismiss his achievements—that clearly hurt, as doors were rapidly closed on Peter.
I hope one day his two boys can take comfort from how much Peter loved them and how very proud he was of them.
I hope very much, my friend, that you are at peace now, but in years to come you should be recognized for the revolutionary pioneer you were, tearing down the hypocrisy of our drug laws.
There are men and women who because of Peter’s love and compassion are alive today; for that, as a society, we will forever be in your debt.
Photograph via X
“Peter was a man of integrity and courage. He saw a need and stepped up … I hope people in the UK understand the magnitude of what he gave and what he endured.”
Zoë Dodd
Drug policy activist and organizer in Canada
Hard to believe I’m writing this and that Peter is no longer with us. It still feels completely surreal that he’s gone. What’s rarely talked about in the UK is its record-breaking number of drug deaths and how a so-called “recovery-oriented system of care,” combined with criminalization and the erosion of the social safety net, has failed people. Prioritizing abstinence above all else is not saving lives. There’s an urgent need for real action and evidence-based policy.
This is what Peter Krykant showed the UK when he took matters into his own hands. He bought a van and proved how simple it could be to save lives—offering harm reduction services, overdose prevention and care. In the face of government abandonment, Peter and a handful of volunteers risked arrest and endured bullying and vitriol from conservatives and segments of the recovery movement, who attacked him both online and in person.
It was hard to witness this from across the ocean. As someone who helped establish the first overdose prevention site in Toronto, I knew how essential community support was. We had allies and a network of volunteers who stood behind us. At Moss Park OPS, which ran illegally in a park for a year, 150 volunteers came together—people who used drugs, nurses, workers and others (several of them sober, in fellowships, but standing in solidarity because they understood the importance of harm reduction). Watching the UK, especially Scotland, struggle with devastating HIV rates and overdose deaths greater than our own, was and is heartbreaking.
I first met Peter during COVID, on Zoom, shortly after he opened the mobile overdose prevention site in Glasgow. I’d already seen him in the media and was so proud of what he was doing. Honestly, I was a bit awestruck when we finally spoke. A small group of us had come together to support others opening overdose prevention sites, and I felt honored to be part of it. After that meeting, Peter and I started messaging and became friends. Comrades offering one another care and encouragement.
A couple of years later, we met in person in Brighton, at the Social Justice Conference Peter helped organize. It was there that I learned how deeply entrenched the UK’s politics were and how so many people were stuck in incrementalism and respectability politics, even in the face of mass death.
Peter was a man of integrity and courage. He saw a need and stepped up, even as the toll of isolation and resistance weighed heavily on him. Without the kind of community we had here, he still forged ahead. I hope people in the UK understand the magnitude of what he gave and what he endured. He was arrested, he was praised, he was attacked, he was respected. He carried an immense responsibility.
If Scotland and the rest of the UK want to confront the drug deaths crisis, they must embrace other ways of knowing and doing. They must move beyond an abstinence-only mindset—it’s not pragmatic, realistic, or saving lives. Abstinence can be one path, but it cannot be the only one, especially in a culture that normalizes heavy consumption of alcohol and other drugs.
My hope is that Peter’s death becomes a lesson: a call to build community, to act collectively, to offer mutual support and care. The UK once led the world in harm reduction; it’s time to reclaim that legacy. Stop pandering to regressive politics. Stop catering to those who lack the urgency to save lives. Do it for the thousands who’ve died over the past decade. Do it for Peter.
This article is a co-publication with Talking Drugs.
Top photograph of Peter Krykant by Nigel Brunsdon
