Jeremy Kalicum outside the B.C. courthouse on Monday. Mr. Kalicum and Eris Nyx were convicted of drug trafficking earlier this month.Jimmy Jeong/The Globe and Mail
A Vancouver man convicted of drug trafficking for his role in operating an illicit-drug distribution program provided a window into his motivations Monday, telling a B.C. court about his brother’s struggle with substance use and the effects of witnessing “hundreds” of overdoses but seeing no meaningful government response.
Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nyx are in B.C. Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of Canada’s drug laws, saying they deprive drug users of safer options, increasing their risk of harm or death.
Mr. Kalicum and Ms. Nyx operated from August, 2022, to October, 2023, as the Drug User Liberation Front, buying illicit drugs from the dark web, checking them at university labs for fentanyl and other impurities, and selling them at cost to their 43 members. They went about their activities openly, with police and politicians aware of their operation and support from the local health authority’s chief and deputy medical health officers.
They were convicted of trafficking earlier this month; the entering of their convictions is on hold pending the outcome of the constitutional challenge.
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In testimony Monday, Mr. Kalicum told of attending a U.S. boarding school, returning home to B.C. and obtaining a bachelor of science and master’s degree in public health, with dreams of becoming a doctor. He was drawn to the profession in part because of his own brother’s struggle with addiction, he told the court.
In 2017 and 2018, as fentanyl swept the illicit drug supply and sent overdose deaths soaring, he worked to establish overdose prevention services in Nanaimo and was invited by a social service provider to learn about other harm reduction initiatives in Vancouver. He accepted, spending two summers in the city, witnessing community-driven overdose response efforts that he said were unlike anything he had ever seen.
“Those summers were when I really witnessed the horrific nature of what was happening in the Downtown Eastside, responding to 10 to 12 overdoses a day, walking home after a shift and seeing dead bodies,” Mr. Kalicum said.
He described seeing several people unconscious in an alley at once, surrounded by glass, and how “horrible and scary” it was to reverse hundreds of overdoses over those two summers.
“Realizing that nothing substantial was happening as a response to this horrific emerging public health emergency, what I learned was that there were things that could be done,” he said.
Questioned by Stephanie Dickson, co-counsel for the pair, Mr. Kalicum told the court on Monday that he first met Ms. Nyx at a 2019 conference on safer supply. The key takeaway was that the overdose crisis was being driven by an unpredictable drug supply that would require some sort of regulation to address, he said.
Earlier that year, the BC Centre on Substance Use had published a report recommending the sale of pharmaceutical-grade heroin through compassion clubs as a way to separate users from the toxic street supply — an idea that generated much discussion at the conference.
“A compassion club could be a real tangible solution that could prevent overdoses from happening and address all these other limitations that are inherent in other responses,” Mr. Kalicum told the court he recalled thinking.
The court heard that the pair hoped to push the idea into the public sphere, where a health authority or organization would take it up. When that didn’t happen, they began exploring a legal path, engaging bureaucrats, academics, health authorities and regulators.
On Monday morning, co-counsel Tim Dickson provided an overview of the challenge. Members of DULF’s compassion club lived with severe substance use disorders and, by virtue of their addictions, had no choice but to use street drugs that have become incredibly toxic, he told the court.
“Prohibiting DULF’s compassion club removes an urgently needed harm reduction mechanism and subjects members to risk of overdose, injury, death or criminal sanction,” Mr. Dickson said.
They are asking the court to either strike down the trafficking provision of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act or, failing that, exempt the pair from it and stay their charges.
In coming weeks, the lawyers will detail Mr. Kalicum and Ms. Nyx’s efforts to operate their compassion club above-board and the practical impossibility of doing so under current legal and regulatory regimes.
They expect to call about a dozen witnesses, including five experts who will testify to the causes of the toxic drug crisis, the inadequacy of the current response, the efficacy and limitations of existing programs that provide regulated alternatives and the urgent need for access to safer substances outside a medical setting.
Asked about the matter on Monday, Premier David Eby said his government supports their prosecutions and convictions.
“Our expectation for every service provider to the province of B.C. is that they follow the law, full stop, no exceptions,” he said.