A Vancouver advocacy group that had been receiving funding from the provincial government had its office raided by police on Thursday as part of an investigation into suspected drug trafficking and two people were arrested.
Vancouver Police Inspector Phil Heard said in a statement officers executed search warrants at the office of the Drug User Liberation Front, as well as at two homes in East Vancouver. Criminal charges will be considered when the investigation is complete, the statement said.
“This group has knowingly operated illegally in the Downtown Eastside and we have now taken action to stop it,” Insp. Heard said. He added that anyone who ignores the law should expect “enforcement action.”
The police did not publicly release the names of the two people who were arrested. They have since been released.
On its website, DULF describes itself as a “drug-user led collective whereby drugs are bought in bulk, tested for purity and contaminants, and distributed at a reasonable cost.”
DULF partnered with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) to open a compassion club in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside earlier this year. It’s “fulfillment centre” allows drug users to receive up to 14 grams of cocaine, heroin or methamphetamine per week with the substances tested for safety before sale “at cost.”
Documents posted to Vancouver Coastal Health’s website shows the Drug User Liberation Front received $200,000 of public funding in 2021-2022. The payments came to light last month after B.C.’s Opposition Leader Kevin Falcon and his BC United Party raised it in the legislature.
Earlier this week, Premier David Eby said during a news conference the contract with DULF had been cancelled and so had the group’s lease.
“It’s unfortunate because they were providing essential life-saving work but they were also breaking the law, which we will not tolerate,” the Premier said.
No one from the health authority was available for an interview. In an unattributed statement, the authority said it had awarded DULF a $200,000 contract in 2023 that was explicitly and exclusively for drug checking, overdose prevention training, and harm-reduction services.
“These are critical services to keep people alive and help people stay safe. VCH has no reason to believe that the funding was being used improperly.”
The health authority said it terminated the contract after being told to do so by Mental Health and Addictions Minister Jennifer Whiteside because of DULF’s “admitted transactions on the illicit market, as it is the ministry’s expectation that partner organizations follow the law.”
A spokesperson for DULF could not be reached for comment.
Solicitor-General Mike Farnworth told the legislature Thursday the contract granted to DULF was to save lives, not to buy drugs.
“In no way, shape or form were any of those funds intended for the purchase of illegal drugs,” he said during Question Period.
In 2021, then Vancouver city councillor Jean Swanson submitted a motion requesting the city’s support for DULF as it applied to the federal government for an exemption from federal drug laws. DULF wanted the exemption to operate a compassion club that would screen street drugs and also offer supports to drug users.
Ms. Swanson’s motion noted that DULF would prefer to purchase pharmaceutical-grade heroine, cocaine and methamphetamine from a “properly licensed and regulated producer,” but that was not possible given current laws.
“In the absence of permissions to obtain substances in this manner, a DULF fulfillment centre would search for and obtain substances in the illicit market through the darknet markets from vendors in Canada,” the motion reads. “Purchasing online has the benefit of reducing interactions and potential violence from buying in-person, and due to the nature of these darknet markets, vendors would remain anonymous.”
The motion to support the exemption was passed with an amendment stipulating the drugs would be purchased through legal means.
Mr. Falcon’s party has called for a forensic audit into the money given to DULF, as well as the $1-million given to VANDU in the same year.
The BC Coroners Service reports that almost 13,000 people have died of illicit drug overdoses since the public-health emergency was declared in 2016.
“We’re committing to innovating, having uncomfortable conversations, but ultimately with anything that’s arrived at, it has to conform with the law. It has to be legal,” said Insp. Heard.
With a report from The Canadian Press