Man planning to sell heroin, meth from Vancouver storefront hopes to save lives
CTV
With B.C. poised to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of hard drugs, one man wants to open a store in Vancouver where people can buy a clean supply of substances like heroin, meth, and cocaine.
Jerry Martin is a former drug addict, and has been clean for 15 years. His brother is one of the thousands of British Columbians who has died from illicit drug toxicity since the overdose crisis was declared a public health emergency in 2016.
Opening a brick-and-mortar store is one way Martin thinks he can make progress on connecting people to a safe, tested supply of drugs like heroin, meth, cocaine, and MDMA amid record numbers of deaths from poisoned substances.
"A lot of these people take a risk every day to go get their drugs, if it isn't clean or safe, or they put themselves in dangerous situations," Martin said.
"A lot of predators out there get girls to do things for their drugs, whether they've got the money or not. I don't think it's very comfortable for anyone, so they can come here and not have to worry about any of that," he continued.
His goal is to open a shop as soon as the province's new drug decriminalization policy takes effect on Jan. 31. B.C.'s three-year, first-in-Canada pilot program will allow adults to possess small amounts of drugs for personal use.
"To the people out there that think it's a bad idea, you have to look at it from the user's angle and the family of that user," he said.
He also hopes through education, his future customers will follow the path he did and choose to get clean.
