DULF: British Columbia’s Struggle for Safe Supply
Ben Nelms/CBC
In early November of 2023, hundreds of safe supply advocates took to the streets. In Vancouver, the echoing chants from passionate marches consumed the Downtown Eastside, while in Victoria, the indignant signs of dozens of protestors dotted the steps of the BC Legislature; at demonstrations across the province, frustrated voices came together under a unifying message: “DULF Saves Lives”. The protests came in response to the recent arrests of Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum, the two founders of the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF). The non-profit organization was created to combat the high rate of overdoses caused by B.C.’s fentanyl-contaminated drug supply by offering users a safe supply of drugs through an expert-proposed, though highly untested, distribution model known as a “compassion club”.
THE D.U.L.F. AND V.A.N.D.U. EVALUATIVE COMPASSION CLUB AND FULFILLMENT CENTRE FRAMEWORK found on the DULF website outlines the organization’s operations, and defines compassion clubs as “drug-user led collectives whereby drugs are bought in bulk, tested for purity and contaminants [such as fentanyl and fentanyl analogues], and distributed at a reasonable cost.” (DULF 3). The organization reasons the necessity for new safe supply models like the compassion club by highlighting the shortcomings of current federally-approved and funded safe supply projects; the DULF cites high barriers to entry due to limited operating hours, limited access, and high wait times. Furthermore, issues regarding the efficacy of generic hydromorphone as a safe supply drug are noted, citing several user-testimonies that claim it simply does not provide the same experience for it to be an “acceptable replacement for street drugs” (DULF 2). The organization was further inspired to pursue a compassion club model by a safe supply statement issued by the Health Canada Expert Task Force on Substance Use in 2021, recommending the development of “new pathways for outreach, screening, and drug distribution, and work to implement them… in partnership with people with lived and living experience and the organizations that represent them.” (DULF 2). While the compassion club model had been proposed by various experts in the field, formative studies on the model had not yet been done. In forming a functioning compassion club, the DULF aimed to not only increase the accessibility of a safe supply on the Downtown Eastside, but to also generate “high quality evidence to inform policy, practice and the optimization of safe supply programming” by evaluating the “ impacts and feasibility of the DULF/VANDU Compassion Club “ (DULF 3).
To operate legally, the DULF required federal approval. In 2021, a formal request for a temporary exemption from the Criminal Code was submitted to Health Canada with the backing of Vancouver Coastal Health, Vancouver City Council, and various experts at the B.C. Centre on Substance Abuse. Despite provincial and municipal support, the request was denied, forcing the DULF to implement their program without legal protection. The DULF utilized dark web vendors to source their drugs via cryptocurrency, which were then sent to UBC and UVIC for contaminant testing. After purity was confirmed, the drugs were sold and distributed through their Downtown Eastside compassion club.
The DULF received $200k from Vancouver Coastal Health between 2021-2023 to fund the program’s drug testing, while only public donations from their website were used to source the program's drugs. The DULF compassion club served and studied 43 drug users, offering up to 14g of heroin, cocaine, or methamphetamine per week. In late 2023, the provincial opposition, BC United, became aware of the DULF, and issued a press release stating that “it is unacceptable that public money is being used to purchase illicit drugs in any way that supports organized crime”. After weeks of political pressure for an investigation into the DULF, on October 25, The VPD raided the DULF’s downtown headquarters and arrested Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum. On October 31, the provincial government cancelled Vancouver Coastal Health’s funding for the DULF.
In August of 2023, roughly two months before police raided the DULF headquarters, the results of the compassion club’s year-long study were published. It was found that among their 43 participants, there had been a 48% decrease in negative police interactions, a 39% decrease in violent behaviour, and a 50% decrease in hospitalizations; over the course of the study, none of the participants suffered an overdose from the drugs they received from the compassion club. Following the arrests, various figures across the province weighed in on the activities of the DULF. B.C. Premiere David Eby described the actions of the DULF as “life-saving work”, but nonetheless, an illegal organization that could not be allowed to operate. B.C. 's Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe expressed sympathy for the group at an advisory panel, stating “If you see somebody in a burning house, you feel somewhat justified to smash a window.”. At the same panel, Lapointe issued an official recommendation to the provincial government to immediately pursue a non-prescription safe supply program to curb the rising rate of overdoses. The panel echoed many of the concerns raised by the DULF, stating that the current safe supply model is too fundamentally restrictive to meaningfully combat the overdose rate. Shortly after, the provincial government refused the panel’s recommendation, stating that “non-prescription models for the delivery of pharmaceutical alternatives are not under consideration”, but that expert opinions could be useful regarding “other urgent issues”.
With the findings of the DULF backed by various experts from provincial health authorities, the shift to a non-prescription model is no longer a gamble; all evidence points to a reduction in toxic drug deaths. With the existing prescriber safer supply model, the government has one foot in the door to a true safe supply. It is now the province’s political stonewalls and apparent disregard for expert recommendations that are blocking any progress in the fight against overdoses. Every day that the government continues to disregard the need for a new model is another day that they disregard the lives of our most vulnerable. As Lisa Lapointe noted at the panel, the failure of the government’s current prescriber model can be measured by the mounting number of lives lost every day. In 2023, 2,511 people lost their lives to toxic drugs, the equivalent of 7 per day. Fentayl was detected in 85.3% of the deaths. The toxic drug crisis has come to a head where the war is no longer fought against the drugs themselves or the suffering individuals who rely on them. Rather, it is fought in the halls of the legislature, where the province is at war with itself to allow for a shift in its paradigm. The question of whether it will is one that will determine the future of British Columbia’s overdose crisis and the fates of those it holds in its grip.
