B.C. drug ‘compassion club’ reduced overdose risk: lawyer in constitutional challenge
By Canadian Press on November 24, 2025.
VANCOUVER — A lawyer for the founders of a Vancouver club that provided tested heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine to drug users during the toxic drug crisis says the risk from the street supply is “grossly disproportionate” to any benefit of shutting down the club.
Tim Dickson told a B.C. Supreme Court judge in his opening statement on a constitutional challenge of the conviction of the two founders that shutting the “compassion club” launched by the Drug User Liberation Front violates a users’ Charter, including the right to life and security of the person.
The challenge comes after Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nyx were found guilty this month on charges of possession of the drugs for the purposes of trafficking, although the conviction has been suspended until the constitutional argument is decided.
Dickson told the court the charges were “completely out of sync” with the public health goals of Canada’s drug laws and the club was effective in reducing overdoses and deaths.
Dozens of supporters watched from the courtroom gallery on the first day of the trial, which is expected to last three weeks and include testimony from both founders and multiple experts.
DULF had operated the compassion club between August 2022 and October 2023, and was given annual funding of $200,000 from the Vancouver Coastal Health authority for its drug checking and overdose prevention services.
In 2021, the club approached Health Canada asking for permission to buy heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine on the dark web before having the drugs tested for contaminants and selling them to users through its “compassion club and fulfilment centre.”
Health Canada rejected the application for exemption from drug laws, saying DULF’s plan presented too many public health and safety risks. The group, however, went ahead with it anyway, saying it would save lives.
Dickson says he will show that an exemption was not “practically available” to the club because of a series of bureaucratic and legislative barriers.
The unsanctioned operation triggered political criticism, particularly after it emerged that it had initially received the public funding.
The operation was shut down in October 2023 when police conducted a raid and arrested Kalicum and Nyx.
Justice Catherine Murray says in her decision on Nov. 7 that the issue at trial was whether drug law exemptions granted to DULF allowed them to possess the drugs with the intent to sell them.
Murray acknowledged that DULF was founded in response to the toxic drug crisis with the goal of distributing safe drugs and curbing overdose deaths.
The decision says the exemption authorized Kalicum and Nyx to test the drugs, package and label them, and provide supervised consumption of those substances, but it did not extend to selling the tested drugs to members.
The latest statistics from the BC Coroners Service shows 158 people in B.C. died from illicit drug overdoses in September, which equates to about 5.3 deaths per day.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 24, 2025.
Ashley Joannou, The Canadian Press
20-19
Oh Boy! BC’s policies and ideas to end the drug crisis just keep getting more and more bizarre! Are they all on drugs in BC?
Perhaps they have mistaken the type of mushrooms they are putting on pizza and in other foods, using Psilocybin mushrooma (magic mushrooms) by mistake.
They are so far down the rabbit hole I cannot understand how they keep coming up with these failed policies and concepts. Who is coming up with this hopeless policies?
Thank you Alberta for moving away from harm reduction and for refusing safe supply drugs in our province, focusing on treatment and recovery programs.
Although all of the programs have not been fully implemented, the results are dramatic, with huge reductions in fatal overdoses! Thank you for all the lives saved and families saved from the devastation of a family member lost to the drugs. We are on the right track!