Founders of Groundbreaking Vancouver Compassion Club Found Guilty of Drug Trafficking

Gasps were heard across a Vancouver courtroom on Friday as BC Supreme Court Justice Catherine Murray lowered her voice to deliver the verdict: that Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum, founders of Vancouver’s Drug User Liberation Front (DULF), were each guilty of three counts of drug trafficking — one for each substance they sold to members of their compassion club.

Murray’s tone was sympathetic to the defendants, repeatedly referencing evidence presented during trial, which — as reported by The Tyee and Drug Data Decoded — established that the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority and police had been well aware, and often supportive, of DULF’s activities long before the pair was arrested on October 25, 2023. 

The maximum sentence Nyx and Kalicum could get for this criminal conviction is life in prison, but the judge ruled there will be no sentencing decision until after the defence’s next move: launching a constitutional challenge against the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA), which will begin on November 24. 

“There is no issue that the Crown has proven the essential elements of the offence of [possession for the purpose of trafficking],” Murray said. “However, this case is not that straightforward.”

Nyx, Kalicum and their lawyers declined to be interviewed Friday, but Kalicum said they will speak to journalists after the Nov. 24 constitutional challenge has been launched. 

Nyx and Kalicum started DULF in 2020 to address the growing toxic drug crisis, a public health emergency in B.C. that has claimed over 18,600 lives in the last decade. 

Their plan — of which they regularly informed both police and Health Canada, and sought legal exemptions — was to procure heroin, meth and cocaine on the dark web, get them tested at UBC and UVic’s drug-checking facilities to ensure no toxicity, package and label them, and sell them at cost in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside to adult compassion club members who were already using drugs and therefore at risk of dying. 

That’s exactly what they did. For one year, between August 2022 and October 2023, DULF’s 47 members obtained their labelled drugs from DULF, and no one overdosed.

In that time, Nyx and Kalicum sought a Health Canada exemption under Section 56.1 of the CDSA in an attempt to carry out their plans legally. This was denied and that decision is currently under judicial review.

But in December 2022, the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority (VCH) entered into an agreement with DULF, giving the compassion club $200,000 to run drug-checking and harm-reduction services. 

“Vancouver Coastal Health considers DULF’s community Compassion Club to be an overdose prevention service as we believe that it has the potential to decrease the risk of overdose without significantly increasing risks to the broader community,” wrote Dr. Mark Lysyshyn, Deputy Chief Medical Health Officer at Vancouver Coastal Health, in a letter of support to Health Canada at the time. 

VCH did have a Health Canada exemption for checking, packaging and storing illicit drugs, which they extended to DULF through this partnership.

But, as the judge ruled, that exemption ultimately did not cover procurement and distribution of these substances. 

‘Backbench politicians’ and a ‘maelstrom of activity’

In her ruling, Murray made several references to the circumstances that led to Nyx and Kalicum’s arrest, particularly a 2023 article in The Economist titled ‘The drug dealers leading a public-health revolution.’

“The article ignited a maelstrom of activity,” Murray said. 

“The drug section of [the Vancouver Police Department], which was previously aware of DULF and the Compassion Club but claims to not have been aware of the DULF site, commenced an investigation. Backbench politicians voiced concern about the government funding an organization that was sourcing drugs on the dark web.”

In her ruling, Murray clarified that government funding was not used for procuring drugs, as the politicians contend — Nyx and Kalicum have specified they bought the drugs using public donations — but said government money was used for DULF’s drug-checking and overdose-prevention site services.

Nevertheless, the outcry against DULF from politicians like Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre led to the BC health ministry forcing VCH to end their contract with DULF. Six days before the contract was terminated, Vancouver Police raided the DULF site and arrested Nyx and Kalicum. 

One of the politicians who led the public outcry against DULF, former BC United and current Independent MLA Elenore Sturko, was in court to hear the verdict on Friday. 

When asked by PressProgress for comment about Murray’s allusion to “backbench politicians” and conclusion that public money was not used to buy drugs, contrary to what she has claimed in the past, Sturko stood her ground. 

“All I heard was a judgment that I think raises questions about funding that was provided by the government,” she said. “It’s disappointing that if the government was going to give money, that they weren’t more clear with these two individuals exactly what was exempt in their activity and what was not.”

DULF is the latest in a series of life-saving harm-reduction movements that were spearheaded by people who use drugs and were, at least for a time, deemed illegal. 

Canada’s first supervised consumption site opened in 1995 as an illegal and unsanctioned facility in Vancouver. Like DULF, it was a grassroots effort by peers to save lives amid a public health emergency.