Drug User Liberation Front founders convicted of drug trafficking

The two founders of a Vancouver "compassion club," that sold heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine to drug users in the Downtown Eastside, have been convicted of drug trafficking charges.

Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nyx founded the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) in 2022 to provide uncontaminated drugs to people who would otherwise be at the mercy of an illicit supply tainted with potentially deadly fentanyl and benzodiazepines.

From August 2022 to October 2023, they operated a storefront where they bought drugs through the dark web and tested the drugs for contaminants in university labs, before clearly labelling them and selling them to members.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled Friday that Kalicum and Nyx had broken the law by selling the drugs to their members, and were each guilty of three counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking — even though they argued some of the club’s activities were exempt from prosecution.

In a text message sent to the fifth estate, Kalicum said the guilty verdict was expected.

"The fight is not just for us. We could easily take some sort of plea deal or beg the government to drop the charges. But we think this is important," Kalicum said in an interview with the fifth estate in August.

However, Kalicum's and Nyx's criminal convictions have been temporarily suspended until a constitutional challenge, filed by DULF, has been resolved — which won’t happen until next year.

The first hearing related to that challenge is on Nov. 24.

In Friday’s ruling, Supreme Court Justice Catherine Murray stated that that there was no question that Kalicum and Nyx had good intentions by operating the compassion club.

“They want to save lives,” she wrote.

At issue in the criminal trial was whether drug law exemptions granted to DULF also allowed them to possess the drugs with the intent to sell them.

Vancouver Coastal Health had designated the club as an overdose prevention site, and later as an "urgent public health need" site, which gave them an exemption for the collection, storing and testing of illicit drugs.

The defence argued that these exemptions meant DULF wasn’t breaking the law — because when Vancouver police searched the storefront in October 2023, the drugs were simply being stored prior to, or after, being tested for contaminants.

In her decision, Justice Murray said the problem with this argument is that DULF had been very public that the intent of the program was to save lives by providing tested drugs to its 43 members.