Capitalism doesn’t just create material inequality: it also inflicts pain and lays the groundwork for drugs to become a form of escape. “People whose lives have been wrecked by capitalism end up turning to drugs,” says activist Vince Tao, as quoted by Morbo.
In Vancouver, Canada, that equation comes to life in neighborhoods like the Downtown Eastside, where poverty, homelessness, and marginalization define daily life. There, the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) decided to intervene with a proposal as radical as it is logical: distributing 100% pure drugs—cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine—so that people who use them at least know what they’re actually putting into their bodies.
Context matters. Canada is facing an unprecedented overdose crisis, with deeply alarming statistics. In 2024, an average of 20 people died every day from opioids (7,146 in total), according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. In 2023, the daily average was 22 deaths. Don’t let the slight drop fool you; the toll remains brutal, and fentanyl dominates the street supply.
Meanwhile, Vancouver is in the middle of a heated political debate over drug decriminalization and regulation. Conservative sectors are calling for more crackdowns, while public health and harm reduction advocates are pushing for a different path: safe, regulated access to substances, aiming to reduce deaths and the harms tied to the illicit market.
What is DULF, and how is it helping people?
The Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) was founded in 2020 with the mission of preventing deaths in a context where using drugs on the street is sort of like playing Russian roulette. Their method breaks the mold: the organization purchases drugs on the dark web, tests them in a lab using mass spectrometry, and distributes them to people on the street in clearly labeled packaging, indicating purity.
In the heart of Downtown Eastside, a neighborhood battered by government neglect, DULF operates more like a compassion club than a dealer. On average, about 20 people come through each day; some return more than once, knowing that what they’re receiving is real, pure, along with guidance on how to use it.
The substances distributed include heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine, packaged in small bags with clear purity labels. The space sees a constant flow of people coming in to pick up. They only open on certain days, but there’s always a line.
What began as a protest performance—when they first handed out pure doses at public events to draw attention to the crisis—has evolved into a pilot program with 40 participants:
- 20 are part of the “compassion club,” with safe, regulated access.
- 20 form the control group, still buying on the street.
Contrary to what many might expect, not a single member of the club has experienced an overdose so far: a stark contrast to those still exposed to the illicit market.
DULF also regulates prices:
- Heroin: CA 128/gram
- Cocaine: CA 66/gram
- Methamphetamine: CA 16.50/gram
The goal is to match or undercut street prices, but with one big advantage: guaranteed purity. Instead of selling what’s commonly known on the street as “down” —fentanyl mixed with tranq (xylazine) and who knows what else— they offer active users real heroin; according to many, something “nearly impossible to find these days.”
Prohibition, inequality, and gentrification
DULF’s work draws a direct line between the drug crisis and structural issues like homelessness, poverty, and systemic neglect. Their model aims to prove something that seems obvious but remains taboo: regulation can save lives, just like it does with alcohol.
For Eris Nyx, DULF co-founder, the root of the problem is prohibition itself, which fuels an unsafe and deadly market. Add the political stigma and social rejection that push users even further to the margins.
The drug crisis is deeply intertwined with gentrification and inequality, says activist Vince Tao, noting that the average rent in Vancouver is now CA$2,500 a month (around USD 1,800). The displacement of low-income communities from central neighborhoods only increases the vulnerability of people who use drugs.
Nyx puts it bluntly: “The crux of this whole issue is the regime of drug prohibition, that’s what’s causing the spikes of death.”
She adds, in an interview with The Guardian: “We’re a drop in the bucket, piss in the ocean,” Nyx says. “You really need the government to be doing this. Like a liquor store. We’re a pilot program, and we’re a PR firm for this method of tackling the crisis. But we’re two people. And this is a UN-level kind of problem.”
This commitment doesn’t come for free, and it definitely does not come without repercussions. Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum are facing criminal charges for drug distribution. Police raided DULF’s headquarters, seized their equipment, and banned them from returning to the neighborhood.
While conservative sectors celebrate the crackdown (without acknowledging certain realities), doctors, universities, and even Vancouver’s mayor are calling for a federal exemption that would allow the project to continue as a public health initiative.
Same users, different treatment: The double standard
In Vancouver, the drug debate also holds up an uncomfortable mirror: substance use isn’t judged the same way across social classes. While wealthier individuals have access to ketamine clinics, psychedelic retreats, and luxury rehab centers without legal consequences, poor communities are trapped in a street market of adulterated substances, ones that kill people every day.
While wealthy sectors enjoy glamorous consumption—sometimes even celebrated in pop culture—poorer users are criminalized, persecuted, and left to die due to a lack of information and safe alternatives.
Journalist P.E. Moskowitz illustrates this double standard through personal experience. After living through a traumatic episode in Charlottesville in 2017, he turned to benzos, kratom, antidepressants, and psychedelics to cope with PTSD. That journey exposed the social hypocrisy: the same substances tolerated—or even normalized—among the wealthy are seen as signs of decay in poor neighborhoods.
The conclusion has a bitter taste, but it must be swallowed nonetheless. Prohibition and the lack of meaningful public health policy not only fail to address the crisis, they condemn the most vulnerable. The double standard remains, and the deaths continue, drawing an invisible line between those who can use without being judged and those left behind by the system.
Disclaimer: This article does not endorse or promote the use of cocaine or any illegal substances. It reports on public health approaches, harm reduction initiatives, and the social context surrounding drug policy in Canada.
This article appeared first on El Planteo.
