The 'compassion club' fighting Canada's drug laws

Summary

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Front Burner (CBC): “The 'compassion club' fighting Canada's drug laws”

Host: Jayme Poisson
Guest: Michelle Gamage, Health Reporter at The Tyee
Date: December 9, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into a pivotal constitutional court challenge in British Columbia (B.C.) that could reshape drug laws across Canada. The focus is on the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF), a Vancouver-based “compassion club” that directly sourced, tested, and distributed heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine to users as a harm reduction strategy—operating outside Canada’s legal frameworks but with the goal of saving lives amid the toxic drug crisis. Host Jayme Poisson and journalist Michelle Gamage break down DULF’s journey, the political backlash, the legal implications, and the broader context of harm reduction policies versus public opinion in Canada.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Who Are DULF and Its Founders?

• Founders: Jeremy Callicum (studied chemistry, aspiring physician, drug-testing technician) and Eris Nix (“punk” musician, community organizer, downtown east side harm reduction worker; “fierce,” outspoken, pursuing an MSc at UBC).
• Mission: Addressing B.C.’s catastrophic overdose crisis by providing a regulated, tested drug supply to circumvent the dangers of street drugs contaminated with fentanyl and other substances.
  • “It’s not a hyperbole when she says that thousands of people in my neighbourhood would die every year of overdose.” (Michelle Gamage, 03:55)
  • “You cannot recover someone if they have passed away. Someone cannot go to abstinence-based treatment if they’re dead.” (Michelle Gamage, 05:17)

2. Why Did They Operate Outside the System?

• Limitations of Existing Treatment: Methadone, hydromorphone, and other opioid agonist treatments reach less than 5% of those who could benefit—mainly due to barriers such as required daily pharmacy visits, distrust of the medical system, trauma, or geographic challenges.
  • “Calculations from the province say that a fraction—and we’re talking about less than 5%—of people who could benefit from these programs are able to access them.” (Michelle Gamage, 06:27)
  • "We have to try something that works outside of this to try and get the people who can’t be helped by the current options." (06:58)

3. The Compassion Club Model and Its Impact

• Operations: Started in 2022; peaked at 47 members, primarily from Vancouver’s downtown east side.
  • Drugs sourced (illegally) from the dark web, tested for purity, sold at cost.
  • Community support, social connection, and harm reduction were central.
  • “DULF was like a huge part of my social life, my gateway to the community, really. […] I’d be dead 10 times over if it wasn’t for them.” (Compassion Club member, quoted by Michelle, 08:43)
• Outcomes: Zero deaths among club members during its operation; fewer overdoses, reduced police interactions, decreased hospitalizations, less reliance on illicit markets.

4. Government and Police Response

• Initial Support: DULF was open with authorities, even seeking Health Canada exemptions (unsuccessful). The Vancouver Police were aware; Vancouver Coastal Health and First Nations Health Authority provided funding for testing and harm reduction, not for drug purchases.
  • "Vancouver Coastal Health […] gave them $200,000 to do drug testing and to run an overdose prevention site." (Michelle Gamage, 11:28)
• Turning Point: In late 2023, political backlash grew. Misattributed funding led to heated criticism from BC United and federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.
  • “Supporting organized crime is not life-saving work.” (Kevin Falcon, cited at 13:31)
  • “The Vancouver Police Department apparently saw [a media article] … and that was the first time they learned that DULF had a storefront.” (Michelle Gamage, 13:29)
• Result: Police raided the DULF storefront in October 2023; founders arrested and, later, convicted.

5. Criticisms and Counterarguments

• Key Critique: Buying drugs off the dark web—regardless of funding source—supports organized crime.
  • Response: DULF only turned to illegal sources after Health Canada refused legal avenues; any user on the street is already supporting illicit markets.
  • “It’s not really any different to then go and buy drugs off the dark web. […] An important part of what they were doing is all of the drugs that they were selling, they were selling at cost.” (Michelle Gamage, 17:46)
• Diversion Concerns: Unlike safer supply programs, DULF drugs were not diverted because members sought precisely those substances.
  • “Part of DULF is that they were sourcing and selling drugs that people actually used. […] There was less interest in selling the drugs elsewhere because you are able to buy the drugs you actually want to use.” (Michelle Gamage, 19:17)

6. The Court Case: Legal Arguments

• Guilty Verdict: In November, DULF’s designation as an overdose prevention site didn’t exempt them from trafficking charges. The judge was sympathetic but emphasized legal boundaries.
  • “She talked about how DULF’s pilot project worked and criticized even the backlash against DULF a bit and called it the DULF founders being hung out to dry. […] She was very sympathetic […] but did ultimately find them guilty of trafficking.” (Michelle Gamage, 21:10)
• Constitutional Challenge: DULF now argues:
  • Section 7 (Charter): Right to life, liberty, and security is violated when access to safer supply is denied.
  • Section 15 (Charter): Law discriminates against marginalized and disabled (addicted) persons.
    • “If you cut off people’s access to this safer, tested supply, then people will have no choice but to turn back to the unregulated market. And as we talked about before, the unregulated market is hugely dangerous.” (Michelle Gamage, 22:54)
• Crown’s Position: The Controlled Drugs and Substances Act allows for exemptions; DULF just didn’t pursue it thoroughly enough.
  • “So the Crown can argue that DULF wasn’t necessarily earnestly trying to get an exemption, then DULF doesn’t necessarily get to argue that the law violated charter rights.” (Michelle Gamage, 24:09)

7. Potential Outcomes and Broader Significance

• The judge could:
  • Rule this specific trafficking section unconstitutional for these circumstances.
  • Offer recommendations or “clarity” for other harm reduction groups nationally.
  • Possibly trigger legislative changes to allow for supervised compassion clubs—but widespread reform is unlikely in one ruling.
• Harm reduction (safe supply) is strongly evidence-backed but controversial among the public.

8. Public Opinion vs. Evidence

• Poll (September 2024): Only 46% of Canadians support harm reduction as a primary strategy to address overdoses; 54% prefer enforcement and penalties.
• Why the Disconnect?
  • Legacies of the “war on drugs” and moral framings.
  • Emotional responses cloud rational, evidence-based policy support.
  • “There’s a rational argument to help people, and it’s coming up against people’s emotional reaction to drugs, which they’ve been taught their whole lives.” (Michelle Gamage, 27:36)
  • Harm reduction must be one part of a broader strategy including treatment, naloxone, and prescribed alternatives.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the urgency and necessity of DULF’s work:
  “I’d be dead 10 times over if it wasn’t for them.”
  — Compassion Club member, quoted by Michelle Gamage (08:43)

• On the conflict with the law:
  “DULF has always been very open in the media. They have been trafficking. They were open to the federal government. ‘We’re going to traffic if you don’t give us permission here.’”
  — Michelle Gamage (21:35)

• On the need for a comprehensive approach:
  “It’s not just regulated drugs that will take us out of this crisis. It’s investing in everything the government is currently doing and more.”
  — Michelle Gamage (28:19)

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Timestamps & Key Segments

• [00:47] – Episode premise and DULF introduction
• [02:32] – Background on Eris Nix, Jeremy Callicum, and their motivations
• [05:41] – Critique of current medical (“safe supply”) programs
• [07:38] – Impact on DULF members and outcomes
• [10:08] – Relationship with police, government, and health authorities
• [12:33] – Political backlash and police raid
• [16:08] – Addressing political and media criticism
• [18:42] – Diversion, prescription opioids, and harm reduction
• [20:34] – Criminal trial verdict and judge’s sympathy
• [21:51] – Constitutional challenge: Charter rights and legal arguments
• [26:08] – Polling/public opinion on harm reduction
• [27:06] – Emotional vs. rational divides in policy debate

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Conclusion

This episode provides a rich, nuanced look at the intersection of law, politics, harm reduction, and public sentiment in Canada’s response to the ongoing drug toxicity crisis. DULF’s compassionate and bold model is both a flashpoint in the policy debate and a lens through which to examine the limits—and potential futures—of Canadian drug law.

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Transcript

[A]

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This is a CBC podcast.

[B]

Hey, everybody, I'm Jamie Poisson.

A constitutional challenge is underway in a B.C. supreme Court right now that could impact drug laws nationwide.

[A]

Go saved lives.

[B]

Dolph is the Drug User Liberation Front. And this is a group started in 2022 by Vancouver activists who wanted to do something about the toxic drug crisis that has killed more than 16,000 people in B.C. and over 54,000 people across the country since 2016. So what they did was they sourced heroin, cocaine and meth from the dark web, tested them for purity, and sold them to their members at cost. For the people who founded it and their supporters, it was their way of dealing with the unregulated and often contaminated street supply that was causing overdoses in their community. But in 2023, Dolph's storefront was raided by police and founders Jeremy Callicum and Eris Nix were arrested. Last month, they were found guilty of possession of controlled substances for the purposes of trafficking. But now they have filed a constitutional challenge of their conviction and. And a B.C. judge will decide whether the drug laws that they were found guilty of breaking violate the charter rights of Dolph's members. So today we're going to get into this case, the politics around it, and how it could have big implications on the future of drug policy in this country. Michelle Gammage is the health reporter with the Tyee, an online news magazine based in Vancouver. She's been following Dolph's case and she is here with me today to break it all down.

Michelle, hey, it's great to have you.

[A]

On the show, Jamie. It's so good to be here.

[B]

So I mentioned that Dolph was founded by two people, Jeremy Callicum and Eris Nix. And can you tell me a bit more about them and what they were trying to achieve with Dolph?

[A]

Yeah, sure. So there are two Canadians. Eris grew up in Ontario and Jeremy grew up here in bc. Eris, let's describe her as a punk. She's a musician. She's a community organizer. She's lived and worked in the downtown east side for, for more than a decade now. And she's a harm reduction worker. I don't want to do it. I'm only doing it out of necessity. Do you follow what I'm saying? I don't like selling drugs. In my early 20s, I sold cocaine for money. It's not a pleasant industry to be in and it's really annoying. Doing it for no money under an incorporated nonprofit and trying to sue the federal government is even more annoying. She's tattooed, she's outspoken, she's a very fierce individual. And she's also getting her master's of science at the University of British Columbia. She's in her early 30s. Jeremy Calicom is a bit of a foil to her. He presents a bit more straight laced. He wears button down shirts. He's much more soft spoken. He studied chemistry. He wants to be a doctor. And he was working as a drug tricking technician at Substance, which is a drug trucking project in Vancouver Island. He is in his late 20s. If it were to expand, what would the result be? What would the net change be? Obviously there'd be less deaths, there'd be less overdoses, there'd be less of attacks on our health care system, less of attacks on policing. It'd also be a lot of money taken away from organized crime because these are drugs that organized crime would otherwise be selling to these people at inflated prices. You know what we're doing right now? And the both of them were kind of watching this just unbelievable crisis unfold. And they were like, we have to do something because what is being done by the government isn't enough. Too many people are dying. And Eris, living in the downtown east side, has just spoken about just. It's not a hyperbole when she says that thousands of people in my neighborhood would die every year of overdose. Just the contamination of the supply, Fentanyl being added. And that just means that it's incredibly difficult for someone who can only buy what's known as down, which is a combination of unknown opioids on the street. Dosing is incredibly difficult. So the, the kind of idea behind Dolph was that if people could know what they were taking, then they wouldn't risk overdose or death. You cannot recover someone if they have passed away. Someone cannot go to abstinence based treatment if they're dead. Without the club, more money goes to the illicit market and organized crime. Without the club, overdoses go up. And so they decided to source Heroin, meth and cocaine. And the way to do that in Canada is to source that illegally. And then they tested the drugs, working with various levels of government to do so, and then distributed those drugs to 47 compassion club members.

[B]

There are lots of legal medical options for people trying to avoid using street drugs that could be contaminated. There are things like methadone or hydromorphone or opioid agonist treatment. Health Canada can also grant exemptions to the Controlled Drugs and Substances act, which they've done in the past. And so why did Calicum and Nicks feel that the only way forward was completely outside the system here? Was buying and distributing these drugs the way that they did? Just tell me more about the rationale behind that.

[A]

So it really boils down to people were still dying in huge numbers, so whatever was being done wasn't going far enough. So when people want to access opioid agonist therapy, or if they want to access safer supplier prescribed alternatives, they have to go to a doctor or a clinician and work with that clinician and generally show up at a pharmacy every day to receive their medications. And so that works for some people and for the people it works for. Amazing, but it's not reaching everyone. So calculations from the province say that a fractionand we're talking about less than 5% of people who could benefit from these programs are able to access them. And Callicum and Nicks say that a lot of the reasons for that is just people either maybe don't want to work with the medical system. So maybe they have past trauma from working with doctors. Maybe they have fears that if they go to their doctor and say they use drugs, that their children could be taken away from them, for example, or showing up regularly at a pharmacy doesn't work for them. Maybe they live in a rural community and would have to travel several hours to be able to do this. And so Nixon, Calicol said, we have to try something that works outside of this to try and get the people who can't be helped by the current options.

[B]

And when they started in 2022, as I understand it, Dolph had 24 members and then it grew to 47 members at its peak. People who could come and access, access the drugs. And just. Can you tell me a bit more about those members and the impact that they say that Dolph had on them during that, during the time that it was operating?

[A]

Sure. So people generally lived in the downtown east side, and often by being able to come to the Compassion Club, they would be able to access In a sense, community. They could talk with people who understood where they were. They could talk with people who could meet them where they were at. Eris talked in court about how this was often the first time someone got to speak with another human all day. And it just kind of introduced a sense of stability into a lot of people's lives. And the impact that that had on people was really powerful. Actually, Dolph was like a huge part of my social life, my gateway to the community, really. I can't stand the thought of my friends going to jail for this, for saving lives, you know, for saving my life. Like, I'd be dead 10 times over if it wasn't for them. So this feels like a really sad baseline to use, but it's. It's kind of one that's important because of the level of fatalities that are happening in this crisis. But no Compassion Club members died. So when they were accessing these drugs of non purity and potency, they were able to dose themselves in a way that didn't cause fatal overdose. And in a study that Dolph did of its operations, trying to see how it was working, how it was helping people, it found that Compassion Club members had fewer overdoses during that time. We also saw things that we weren't expecting. We saw people that were accessing the club stop using drugs once they were able to gain that stability and not have to be like, kind of flailing around trying to find substances or. Or getting ripped off. Combation Club members had fewer interactions with police officers. They ended up going to the hospital less, and they were less reliant on the unregulated market. So that's a really big success.

[B]

When they were getting started, what was Dolph's relationship like with the Vancouver Police Department? Did the police know that they were doing this? Because just to state the obvious here, like, you obviously cannot buy heroin off the dark web and just sell it to people like that is. That is illegal.

[A]

Yes. So the police knew about this. Jeremy and Eris tried to work with all levels of government from the get go. And so when they. They were loosely formed in 2020 and in that summer was the first time that they were able to source cocaine. And this is before they moved to the dark web. So they were sourcing it in person, but they sourced cocaine, tested it, and then were able to distribute it for free at this protest. And they did about three more handouts that way, and there were no police arrests. Jeremy and Eris also went and spoke with the Vancouver police multiple times and explained what they were doing. And the police, they never went as as to say, we support what you're doing. But they did say, like, we see the intention that you have, we see the harm reduction that you are doing.

[B]

Right. And am I right to say that? They also had funding from the provincial government through Vancouver's local health authority. Right?

[A]

Yeah. So multiple levels here. So the federal government controls drug policy and drug laws. In the summer of 2021, they applied for a federal exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances act from Health Canada, which would have given them perm permission to work with a pharmaceutical company so they didn't have to source drugs from the web. Health Canada said, no, we're not going to grant that to you. So the province can't necessarily give Dolph permission to do buying or selling of drugs. But they're like, here's how we can support you because we see the benefit that you're having. So Vancouver Coastal Health, which is a health authority, and the First Nations Health Authority Both supported Delft. VCH supported them financially. They gave them $200,000 to do drug testing and to run an overdose prevention site. And they leased them historic front for free in the downtown east side that they could run the Compassion Club out of a couple other levels of government that were supporting them as well. We had the former leader of the BC Green, Sonia Furstenau and Vancouver City Council both voted in support of Health Canada granting them the exemptions. They said, we see what you're doing, we see the harms it's reducing and we support that part of it.

[B]

Okay, so they're operating quite smoothly for about a year, as you've said, with support from some governments, the provincial government specifically, and then really like tacit support from the police department. And then in October 2023, police raid their storefront and they arrest Calicom and nix.

[A]

This group was knowingly illegally trafficking in drugs. As a result, we took action to stop it.

[B]

What changed that led to that raid?

[A]

Yeah, so around August 2023, the winds shifted. So around that time, Dolph published research that showed its Compassion Club was working. And that seemed to catch the attention of BC United, which was BC's Liberal party. They folded. They don't exist currently since then. But it caught the wind of B.C. united. Party Leader Kevin Falcon was condemned. They misattributed the Vancouver coastal health funds and said that the funds were being used to buy drugs. Supporting organized crime is not life saving work. And this caught the attention of Conservative Party leader Pierre Poliev who called The Compassion Club a disgrace and condemned the B.C. nDP for giving hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to illegal drug dealers in addiction to decriminalizing hard drugs. That was a quote from him. And at the same time the Economist ran an article like a feature about Dolph. They were by no means the first media outlet to do that. Almost everyone was writing about Dolph, but the Vancouver Police Department apparently saw that article and that was the first time they learned that Dolph had a storefront. And so they were concerned that there might be copycats who also open storefronts to do this. We have always warned that anyone who violates the criminal code or the Controlled Drugs and Substances act should expect to face enforcement. And so all of that kind of combined at the provincial level there was criticisms about this Compassion Club and the NDP support. NDP polled its support, Vancouver Coastal Health ended its funding and shortly after that the the police moved in and arrested everyone.

[B]

BC's premier hopes the raid sends a message to other groups operating illegally.

[A]

Even though they were doing that important life saving work, they were also breaking the law and we can't have it.

[B]

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[A]

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[B]

I want to go through with you a couple of the critiques here just to kind of get how Dolph supporters, how these two founders might respond to them. You know you mentioned Pierre Poliev's remarks, Eleanor Sterko, who was at the time in opposition MLA and one of Dolph's most vocal critics, you know she, she was doing the same things here, saying that they were doing dark web drug trafficking and characterize it as the BCNDP funding drug dealers.

[A]

And this government supported Dolph to the tune of $200,000, putting that money potentially into the hands of murderers. You should be ashamed. So let's make one thing clear, that the premier subsidized an organization that not only used cryptocurrency to buy illegal drugs off the dark web, they funded an organization that was openly bragging about it.

[B]

I take your boy that that money wasn't for buying drugs.

So that's not really a good faith criticism. But what about the criticism that just by buying drugs off the dark web, regardless of the source of the money, that it supports criminal networks? Like, how would DOL founders and their supporters respond to that?

[A]

So it's not wrong. They were buying drugs off the dark web. And I think this really comes back to the request that they made to Health Canada. So originally they said, hey, Health Canada, please give us permission to work with a pharmaceutical company so we don't have to do this because they weren't able to do it legally, they had to do it illegally. And then the second part is, so if you think about it, people who would have been using drugs from the unregulated market, they would have been supporting organized crime. It's not really any different to then go and buy drugs off the dark web. In a way, you're still supporting organized crime. Jeremy and Aris talked about trying to source drugs from dealers that weren't selling in other things like information or weapons. But they argued they also tried to reduce the amount of potential violence because you're just taking money away from street dealers and rather giving it to them. And I'm not sure I've mentioned this yet, but an important part of what they were doing is all of the drugs that they were selling, they were selling at cost. So Dolph wasn't making any money on the sales. And as you mentioned, Vancouver Coastal Health money never went towards the sales. They were collecting private donations which were then used to buy the drugs.

[B]

There's also the concern of safer supply drugs being diverted to the black market and also to organized crime. Right. A leaked report from the B.C. government suggested this has been happening to a significant degree, though that report didn't put hard numbers on how much exactly is being diverted. But after that leak, the government actually changed its safer supply program earlier this year, so patients are now required to take their prescription opioids in front of a pharmacist to stop them from being diverted. And was there concern that Dolph could be implicated in something like that?

[A]

Not really. So I'm glad you brought this up. So diversion is a whole other problem and it is one that has been going on for way longer than Dolph has existed. So Dilaudid is a really powerful painkiller and it's hugely prescribed across bc, has been for a decade to mitigate pain. And when people don't use the medication that they are given, sometimes they give them the medication maybe to a friend, maybe they have an old prescription which they lend to a friend who like hurt their knee, or maybe they sell it to the unregulated market for money. And one of the biggest problems with diversion is that you're prescribing people medications that they don't want to have or they don't need to have. And so part of Dolph is that they were sourcing and selling drugs that people actually used. And so there was less interest in selling the drugs elsewhere because you are able to buy the drugs that you actually want to use.

[B]

So in early November, Callicum and Nix were found guilty in a criminal trial. They had argued that their designation from the province as an overdose prevention site exempted them, but a judge ultimately found them guilty of three counts of drug possession for the purposes of trafficking. And I know that you covered that trial extensively and I'm wondering what you made of the judges decision, because if you read it, it almost sounds like she is sympathetic to them and their cause.

[A]

So I think the judge really was sympathetic to what Dolph was doing. And she talked about how Dolph's pilot project worked and criticized even the backlash against Dolph a bit and called it the Dolph founders being hung out to dry. But that criminal case wasn't the opportunity for her to say, this crisis is really bad, we need to do something. It was the opportunity for her to say were they trafficking or not? And Dolph has always been very open in the media. They have been trafficking. They were open to the federal government. We're going to traffic if you don't give us permission here. So she was very sympathetic to what they were doing, but did ultimately find them guilty of trafficking.

[B]

And I guess this brings us now to the current moment and this case is being heard right now in the B.C. supreme Court, which is a charter challenge and it's done as part of the same proceedings. So it's generally heard by the same judge, which is happening now. It's the same judge. And what exactly are Callicum and Nick's arguing in this charter challenge?

[A]

So they're arguing that by Closing Dolph, the government is violating Section 7, which is the right to life, liberty and security of the person, and section 15, which says all people must be treated equally under the law and have equal protection and benefit from the law. And so many people who are accessing Dolph could be said to have an addiction or a dependency on the substances that they used. And opioid use disorder is classified as a chronic relapsing illness, so that people will continuously go back and use the drugs. So it's not as simple as saying, don't use them, stop using them. There is an illness going on here that brings people back continuously to the drugs. So if you cut off people's access to this safer, tested supply, then people will have no choice but to turn back to the unregulated market. And as we talked about before, the unregulated market is hugely dangerous.

[B]

Right. So they're essentially saying that by shutting down the storefront and by arresting the two founders, that those charter rights for all the people that, like up to 47 people who are using Dolph, their charter rights have been violated.

[A]

Yeah. And also when we're talking about people who use drugs and people living on the downtown east side, we're often talking about highly marginalized people. We're talking about indigenous people, we're talking about people with a lot of trauma. And an addiction is classified as a disability. So the law isn't supposed to discriminate against marginalized people in that way. And Dolph is arguing that it is.

[B]

Michelle, how has the Crown been pushing back on the argument that this violates Charter rights? Like, how is the Crown saying that this doesn't violate the charter rights of Delft members?

[A]

So in Canada, drug laws, which are laid out in the Controlled Drugs and Substances act, they're quite tough, but then they're allowed to be quite tough because it has this ability to grant exemptions to the law. And so therefore, the government says we'll hear cases as they come up and we can grant exemptions if it's needed. So if the Crown can argue that Dolph wasn't necessarily earnestly trying to get an exemption, then Dolph doesn't necessarily get to argue that the law violated charter rights.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So Dolph is saying exemption wasn't really possible, and the Crown is saying that exemption was, and you just didn't try hard enough.

[B]

If Dolph, if Calicum and Nics are successful here, what would the implications be for Canadian drug laws? Like, just extrapolate this for Me?

[A]

Yeah. So really hard to say. So they were tried for trafficking with the intent for distribution, which is section 5, subsection 2 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. So that's the kind of. Of part that could be reworked here. So the rest of the drug laws are not on the table, but that section is. And so the judge could say in this one case, this one time, that subsection was unconstitutional, and then the charges against Jeremy and Eris go away because you can't be charged under an unconstitutional law. But the judge actually has a bit of power here. So it's possible that she could go to the government and say, hey, you need to rework this section because it is unconstitutional, or she could go as far as just striking it entirely. Now, that's probably not likely, but what is most likely going to happen if this is found to be unconstitutional is that there's just going to be clarity offered for people who maybe want to set up similar harm reduction services, which could be really interesting to see as this crisis continues across Canada.

[B]

Yeah, super interesting. You know, Michelle, before we go, in the world of drug policy research and harm reduction, the consensus is pretty unanimous that the way to stop overdose deaths is to provide people with safe, regulated supply of drugs. You've gone through this all today. There's a huge body of research supporting that. But in terms of public opinion, this is still a really controversial idea. A poll from Abacus data back in September 2024 found that only 46% of Canadians believe that the solution to the overdose crisis is a harm reduction approach. The other 54% preferred an approach focused on increased law enforcement and stricter drug trafficking penalties. So why, why is it that you think that there's such a disconnect between what the experts and the evidence say works and what Canadians say Canadians actually want? I know this is a complicated question, but I'd love to get your thoughts on it.

[A]

Yeah, I think this is a product of the war on drugs, which is decades and decades and decades old. And the war on drugs says drugs are bad because drugs are bad. And for, I think a lot of Canadians, they grew up hearing that. And that is a moral argument, and therefore it's a moral failing to be using drugs. And when you're thinking emotionally or when you're approaching an issue emotionally, it's really hard to bring rationality in. They kind of clash. So we're talking about there's a rational argument to help people, and it's coming up against people's emotional reaction to drugs, which they've been taught their whole lives. So it's not really surprising that people are having a difficult time kind of like mashing these two together. But I think a really important thing to just note is it's not just regulated drugs that will take us out of this crisis. It's investing in everything that the government is currently doing and more. So we need more naloxone everywhere, which is a drug that can reverse an opioid overdose. We need more treatment and recovery. We need more access to detox. We need more prescribed alternatives. We need more opioid agonist treatment. All of this and more. And then for the people who have tried everything that the government offers, maybe they would be able to benefit from a Compassion Club in their community. And so it's not one or the other. It's everything and more.

[B]

Okay, Michelle, thank you very much for this. Really appreciate it.

[A]

Really good to be able to talk about this. Thank you so much, Jamie.

[B]

All right, that's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.

[A]

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