An emergency situation has arisen. Both Kalicum and Nyx have officially been charged by Vancouver police with having possessed drugs for the purpose of trafficking under Section 5(2) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. This will result in a minimum of two years in prison if the prosecution proves that they intended to traffic drugs. The decision to charge Nyx and Kalicum came as a surprise to one of their lawyers, Stephanie Dickson, because the two were providing a humane service to the community in preventing overdose deaths.

DULF’s compassion club

The Drug User Liberation Front managed to gather up a vast supply of pure heroin, cocaine and methamphetamines from the “Dark Web” — internet sites hidden from the normal web — and had it tested for purity. The drugs that were tainted were destroyed, and the drugs that were pure (or close to it) were distributed for free. The fact that these drugs were free prompts the question: What kind of drug trafficker gives away their entire supply for free and with no questions asked?

The model the Front was using is called the “compassion club” model. What is a compassion club? It is a facility or organization that makes pure legal or illegal drugs for recreational use available. In this case, the Vancouver compassion club supplied heroin, coke and meth.

The history of compassion clubs goes back to the 1980s and early 1990s, when so-called “buyers’ clubs” were founded in New York, California, Florida, Texas and other states in order to distribute legal or experimental medications to treat the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). The big difference between a buyers’ club and a compassion club is that the drugs from a compassion club are, notably, free.

DULF’s original plan was to acquire medical-grade diacetylmorphine — using this drug in this instance and not heroin to make clear the division between an illicitly acquired street drug and a medication being used to prevent overdose or death. Yet Health Canada, Canada’s department of health and health policy, refused to grant them access to 100% pure medical graded diacetylmorphine. Even with that as a barrier, DULF still went ahead and distributed drugs to save the lives of chaotic drug users, whose lives were at risk because of contaminants in their usual drug supply.

(Emphasis original.)