The two founders of a Vancouver “compassion club,” that sold heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine to drug users in the Downtown Eastside, have been found guilty of drug trafficking charges.
Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nyx founded the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) in 2022 to provide uncontaminated drugs to people who would otherwise be at the mercy of an illicit supply tainted with potentially deadly fentanyl and benzodiazepines.
From August 2022 to October 2023, they operated a storefront where they bought drugs through the dark web and tested the drugs for contaminants in university labs, before clearly labelling them and selling them to members.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled Friday that Kalicum and Nyx had broken the law by selling the drugs to their members, and were each guilty of three counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking — even though they argued some of the club’s activities were exempt from prosecution.
In a text message sent to the fifth estate, Kalicum said the guilty verdict was expected.
“The fight is not just for us. We could easily take some sort of plea deal or beg the government to drop the charges. But we think this is important,” Kalicum said in an interview with the fifth estate in August.
However, Kalicum’s and Nyx’s criminal convictions have been temporarily suspended until a constitutional challenge, filed by DULF, has been resolved — which won’t happen until next year.
The first hearing related to that challenge is on Nov. 24.
Compassion club operated without exemption
In Friday’s ruling, Supreme Court Justice Catherine Murray stated that that there was no question that Kalicum and Nyx had good intentions by operating the compassion club.
“They want to save lives,” she wrote.
At issue in the criminal trial was whether drug law exemptions granted to DULF also allowed them to possess the drugs with the intent to sell them.
Vancouver Coastal Health had designated the club as an overdose prevention site, and later as an “urgent public health need” site, which gave them an exemption for the collection, storing and testing of illicit drugs.
The defence argued that these exemptions meant DULF wasn’t breaking the law — because when Vancouver police searched the storefront in October 2023, the drugs were simply being stored prior to, or after, being tested for contaminants.
The Vancouver Police Department is investigating the activist group — which has admitted to distributing illegal drugs tested for safety — and made two arrests. B.C. United MLA Elenore Sturko, DULF co-founder Garth Mullins, and Vancouver ABC Coun. Brian Montague speak to Gloria Macarenko about the arrests.
In her decision, Justice Murray said the problem with this argument is that DULF had been very public that the intent of the program was to save lives by providing tested drugs to its 43 members.
“There is no doubt, that at all times, DULF possessed the drugs for one purpose – to distribute to its members,” she stated.
Justice Murray noted in her 16-page decision that the DULF founders had “always been openly and publicly forthright about their activities” by speaking to police, politicians and health officials and inviting them to their meetings.
The judge also described Kalicum and Nyx as “agitators” who “want to make change.”
“The evidence shows that Mr. Kalicum and Ms. Nyx were acutely aware that their actions were not sanctioned and that they ran the risk of criminal prosecution for trafficking,” reads the decision.
In 2021, DULF had applied to Health Canada for an exemption to the law that would have allowed them to operate their compassion club legally.
But a year later, Health Canada denied the exemption “because of the associated public health and safety risks.”
Kalicum and Nyx appealed that decision, and decided to open their compassion club anyway.
“It’s, you know, our friends, our family, and our communities who are at risk of dying, who are overdosing, who do die on a regular basis,” Kalicum told the fifth estate in an interview in August.
The fifth estate is airing an investigative documentary next week that features an in-depth interview with Kalicum, and reveals that Health Canada officials ignored expert advice to expand safe supply options like legal and regulated compassion clubs.
- Watch the full documentary, “The War on Safe Drugs” from the fifth estate on YouTube on Nov. 13 at 4 p.m. PT or CBC-TV and Gem on Nov. 14 at 9 p.m.
Charter challenge
DULF’s constitutional challenge, which was filed last October, argues that the Charter rights of Kalicum, Nyx and drug users were violated when the club was shut down because it was providing life-saving services in an emergency situation.
“Everything that DULF was doing was because of this very acute public health emergency that we’re facing and the inadequacy of the responses so far,” explained DULF’s lawyer Tim Dickson in an interview with the fifth estate in August.
B.C. MLA Elenore Sturko, a vocal critic of DULF, has argued that by purchasing drugs through the dark web, DULF was participating in “dark web drug trafficking.”
Kalicum and Nyx published peer-reviewed qualitative and quantitative studies that found that the members of the club experienced fewer overdoses.
In her decision, Murray highlighted the fact that DULF’s pilot project worked to prevent overdose deaths.
“In its first year there were no overdoses involving the substances provided at their consumption site,” reads the decision.
