Almost two years after police raided their compassion club and homes, Drug User Liberation Front co-founders Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum are in court to fight drug trafficking charges.
They were arrested and charged Oct. 25, 2023, when Vancouver police raids shut down DULF, which was buying, testing and selling illegal meth, cocaine and heroin at cost to compassion club members.
The goal, DULF maintained, was to save lives.
Crown prosecutors took Monday and Tuesday, the first two days of the trial, to present their case that the duo had been trafficking drugs.
(4).jpg)
DULF was always open about what it was doing, so establishing that Nyx and Kalicum had been buying and selling drugs was straightforward. The Crown presented bank accounts for DULF under the founders’ names, and news articles where the pair identified themselves as the co-founders of DULF and said they were asking Health Canada for an exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to buy, test and sell illegal drugs.
In its request, DULF said it would ideally find a pharmaceutical company to work with, but in the meantime would have to source drugs from the dark web.
The Crown’s case even included a recording where Nyx and Kalicum openly spoke with Vancouver police officers about buying drugs from the dark web with the intent to test and sell them to compassion club members.
The Crown called two Vancouver police officers, Sgt. Mike Cheah and Det. Kenneth Lee, who confirmed their investigation and subsequent raids, found DULF was buying and selling meth, cocaine and heroin.
However, DULF’s lawyers are arguing Nyx and Kalicum were allowed to provide the drugs because they were operating under an exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that let them test drugs during the toxic drug crisis.
DULF was founded in the fall of 2022 by Nyx and Kalicum in response to the deaths caused by the unregulated and increasingly toxic drug supply.
According to the BC Coroners Service, when DULF was formed, about 11,800 British Columbians had been killed by unregulated drugs since 2014, when fentanyl started appearing and killing people. By the time they were arrested, roughly one year later, the death toll had jumped to more than 14,500. As of August, more than 18,444 people have died.
To reduce deaths, Nyx and Kalicum decided to buy drugs, test them and sell them at cost to 47 compassion club members who were over 18 and already using unregulated substances, meaning they were at high risk of overdose and death.
DULF relied on donations to buy the drugs and did not make any money on sales.
This strategy worked.
DULF produced a peer-reviewed study that showed after about one year, none of its compassion club members had died. Members reported having fewer overdoses and engaging in less crime.
Although they bought the drugs from the dark web using cryptocurrency, DULF never worked in the shadows.
From the start, Nyx and Kalicum were in contact with Health Canada, submitting their request to be exempt from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
Health Canada denied that exemption, and DULF challenged that decision in a separate court case that took place in April 2024 and is still awaiting a decision. If Nyx and Kalicum are convicted of trafficking, there are plans to challenge the constitutionality of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
DULF also worked with Vancouver Coastal Health to offer other harm reduction services, including drug checking and an overdose prevention site where people could use drugs and have someone intervene if there was a medical emergency.
Vancouver Coastal Health leased DULF space in the Downtown Eastside at 390 Columbia St. to run these services. DULF stored and sold tested cocaine, methamphetamines and heroin to its compassion club members from the site.
The health authority did have an exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to let it set up drug checking and consumption sites based on urgent public health needs.
DULF’s lawyers are arguing that this exemption meant Nyx and Kalicum were providing the drugs legally.
“The work we’re doing is an advanced form of drug checking,” Nyx said in a conversation between herself, Kalicum and Vancouver Police Department Insp. Phil Heard and Staff Sgt. Jason Chan in a recording that was played in court Tuesday.
DULF’s defence lawyers presented emails that showed DULF worked to have an open and ongoing relationship with the VPD.
In a recording from August 2021, Nyx and Kalicum explain to the officers that they were buying, testing and handing out free drugs at protests, but that they wanted to start a compassion club following the same model.
Nyx adds that DULF is a pretty “small fish” given the scale of drug sales in the Downtown Eastside.
In the recording, the officers reply that this is “great work that you’re doing” and that they are “happy to assist in any way we can.”
The court heard Kalicum sent emails to Heard, then-police chief Adam Palmer and then-interim chief Fiona Wilson, in which he’d give updates on DULF and highlight how DULF and the VPD shared the same goals of keeping people safe.
Wilson even followed DULF on Twitter and said in an email to Kalicum that she takes an interest in anything that can be done legally to save lives and thought the organization’s Twitter account could be a good source of information.
But none of this information got back to Cheah, who led the Vancouver police investigation on DULF.
Cheah was cross-examined on Tuesday by DULF’s lawyer Tim Dickson. DULF was also represented by lawyers Stephanie Dickson and Kaelan Unrau.
In court, Cheah said he couldn’t remember if he’d spoken to Heard or Wilson about DULF before or during the investigation.
He also said he researched DULF online but never saw DULF’s website, which also laid out exactly what DULF was doing.
“Really, your Google search never turned up DULF.ca?” asked Dickson.
Cheah said the VPD hadn’t paid much attention to DULF until the Economist published a feature about DULF on Sept. 8, 2023, which said DULF was operating out of a storefront in Vancouver.
That made the VPD concerned that if it didn’t act, there could be copycats who opened similar storefronts and sold drugs, he said.
Cheah said what could happen to DULF’s compassion club members if they weren’t able to access tested drugs was outside the scope of his investigation.
The Economist was far from the first news outlet to write about DULF. Dickson asked Cheah if he’d read articles from the CBC, Canadian Press, Vancouver Is Awesome, National Observer, Guardian, Toronto Star, Filter or The Tyee that came out before the Economist article, but Cheah said he had not.
While the VPD was investigating DULF, then-BC United party leader Kevin Falcon and current federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre were critical of the partnership between Vancouver Coastal Health and DULF.
Vancouver Coastal Health had given DULF $200,000 so the site could run drug checking and harm reduction services. VCH and DULF say the money was never used to buy drugs.
VCH cancelled its financial partnership with DULF shortly after the politicians’ comments and ended the lease at 390 Columbia St.
Cheah said he didn’t speak with Vancouver Coastal Health during the investigation and wasn’t aware of the exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
“Do you know of any organized crime in the Downtown Eastside that has partnerships with health authorities?” Dickson asked Cheah, who said he didn’t.
Cheah said he also wasn’t aware that DULF was being kicked out of its storefront.
Nyx and Kalicum were arrested six days before they would have had to vacate 390 Columbia St.
Their trial is scheduled for the next two weeks but will likely wrap up before then, with Justice Catherine Murray expected to announce a verdict a few weeks after the trial ends.
