VANCOUVER — A lawyer for the founders of a Vancouver club that tested heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine to provide to drug users in the ongoing overdose crisis says the risk from the street supply is “grossly disproportionate” to any benefit of shutting down the club.
Tim Dickson told a B.C. Supreme Court judge in opening the constitutional challenge case that charging the founders of the Drug User Liberation Front with possession for the purpose of trafficking, effectively shutting down the “compassion club,” is a violation of club members’ protected Charter rights.
“The drug User Liberation Front, its compassion club was an efficacious means of reducing the severe risks of overdose, injury and death arising from the toxic drug crisis,” Dickson said Monday as dozens of the organizations’ supporters watched from the gallery.
Dickson said the closure of the club violates users’ Section 7 rights to life and security of the person and their Section 15 rights to equality on the grounds of disability — in this case severe addiction.
He said Section 7 is engaged when the actions of the state increase the risk of death for a person, either directly or indirectly, and that the Charter guarantees that people have control over their bodily integrity, free from state interference.
The challenge comes after Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nyx were found guilty this month on charges of possession of the drugs for the purposes of trafficking, although the conviction has been suspended until the constitutional argument is decided.
Dickson told the court the charges were “completely out of sync” with the public health goals of Canada’s drug laws and the club was effective in reducing overdoses and deaths.
Closing the club “removes an urgently needed harm-reduction mechanism, and it subjects the members to the risk of overdose, injury or death or criminal,” he said calling it “inconsistent with the equal worth and protection of people who use drugs.”
The hearing is expected to last about three weeks, and Dickson said it will include testimony from both founders and multiple experts.
They are asking the court to either grant a stay of proceeding on the drug charges or an exemption as a result of the Charter violations.
DULF had operated the compassion club between August 2022 and October 2023, and was given annual funding of $200,000 from the Vancouver Coastal Health authority for its drug checking and overdose prevention services.
In 2021, the club approached Health Canada asking for permission to buy heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine on the dark web before having the drugs tested for contaminants and selling them to users through its “compassion club and fulfilment centre.”
Health Canada rejected the application for an exemption from drug laws, saying DULF’s plan presented too many public health and safety risks. The group, however, went ahead with it anyway, saying it would save lives.
Dickson says he will show that an exemption was not “practically available” to the club because of a series of bureaucratic and legislative barriers.
When news of the unsanctioned operation broke, it triggered political criticism, particularly after it emerged that the club had initially received the public funding.
The operation was shut down when police conducted a raid and arrested Kalicum and Nyx.
Justice Catherine Murray says in her decision released Nov. 7 that the issue at trial was whether drug law exemptions granted to DULF allowed them to possess the drugs with the intent to sell them.
Murray acknowledged that DULF was founded in response to the toxic drug crisis with the goal of distributing safe drugs and curbing overdose deaths.
The decision says the exemption authorized Kalicum and Nyx to test the drugs, package and label them, and provide supervised consumption of those substances, but it did not extend to selling the tested drugs to members.
Statistics from the BC Coroners Service says 1,384 people died of unregulated drugs in the province up until the end of September.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 24, 2025.
Ashley Joannou, The Canadian Press
