Co-founders of Vancouver compassion club charged with drug trafficking

People hold signs during a rally to condemn the recent arrests of Drug User Liberation Front’s (DULF) founders and raids on the organization's program of selling tested drugs in Vancouver, on Friday, Nov. 3, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns

Criminal charges have been approved against the co-founders of an unsanctioned compassion club in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, police announced Friday.

Authorities said 28-year-old Jeremy Kalicum and 33-year-old Eris Nyx are each facing three counts of possession for the purposes of trafficking.

Kalicum and Nyx started the Drug User Liberation Front, an organization with the stated goal of providing safe supply to help combat B.C.'s ongoing overdose crisis, which has claimed more than 14,500 lives since April 2016.

The arrest of the DULF founders last October prompted outrage in the community, with hundreds of supporters gathering in the streets to protest the police crackdown.

At the time, even Insp. Phil Heard of the Vancouver Police Department acknowledged DULF had been operating with the intention of reducing "impacts of the toxic drug supply," but said authorities nevertheless intended to uphold any laws that were potentially being broken.

"We have always warned that anyone who violates the Criminal Code or the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act should expect to face enforcement," Heard told reporters at a news conference.

Officers began investigating DULF last year, and executed search warrants at the organization's headquarters and two private residences in the fall.

A lawyer representing Kalicum and Nyx told CTV News shortly after that the pair would be challenging any potential criminal charges stemming from their arrests.

"We know that the facts will show that denying access to a predictable, safe, non-toxic supply of drugs for people who depend on them violates their constitutional rights because it forces them to obtain those drugs from the street, where the potency of them is wildly unknown, wildly unpredictable, and unnecessarily at risk to their lives,” said Stephanie Dickson said.

Kalicum and Nyx are scheduled to appear in court in July.

With files from CTV News Vancouver's Isabella Zavarise