We believe that the current rate of overdose death is solely caused by the ramifications of the regime of prohibition and the ongoing war on the poor.

 

Our goal is to change policy and empower people who use drugs, both by filling systemic gaps in healthcare provision, and through long-term systems change. We seek to reclaim knowledge has been stolen from drug users and then used by the Canadian Healthcare System in inadequate and damaging ways. Indeed, after many disappointments in our attempts to work within the medical industrial complex, we have lost faith that the current healthcare regime supports drug user’s involvement in a meaningful or non-tokenistic way. To this end, we seek to collaborate with existing drug user run institutions in an attempt to battle the current ramifications of what we have dubbed “the Crisis of Prohibition”.

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We are tired of people being stigmatized for using drugs and we have set out to destroy the idea that drug use is wrong, bad, or criminal. Our board is entirely made up of current or former drug users and we sincerely believe that it is time for the philosophy of “nothing about us, without us” to be taken seriously by those who claim to preach it. Although our meetings occur on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish People, we hope our reach impacts drug users in a systemic way across the country and even across the world. Our membership wants to increase the pressure against the regime of prohibition, by any means necessary. The war on drugs is a war on the poor, and any systemic attack against one of us will be considered an attack on all of us. Down with prohibition! Down with the prison industrial complex! Down with bureaucrats making decisions on matters that they do not understand! Remember – don’t let the bastards grind you down!

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All of our work is considered “open source” to any other by-and-for drug user group. Please contact cpddwvan@gmail.com for more information or if you have further questions. Our current projects include but are not limited to:

 

• Attempting to run an exempted above board peer-to-peer polysubstance narcotic shop that distributes opiates, stimulants and other drugs with an informed consent model.
   

• Storytelling and narrative production; this includes releasing reports of resistance on how people who use drugs are surviving the current genocide against them, and attempting to combat the current medical narrative that only opiate users deserve safe supply.
   

• Drug user capacity building, resource development, and interagency collaboration; this includes best practice policy development and ongoing expansion and moderation of a drug user group “starter pack”.
   

• Direct advocacy for other drug users groups. We stand in solidarity with anyone trying to keep people safe from overdose death.
   

• The production of legal research and information dissemination to the community as warranted and requested.
   

• Ongoing collaboration with the community in an attempt to find a short term stop gap to the safe supply issue that doesn’t cause the incarceration of our members.
   

• Collaborative grant writing and administrative support for other projects.