Drug User Activism

Crackdown comes from the tradition of organized drug user activism.

In the ‘90s—activists in Vancouver, some who used drugs and some who didn’t, had an idea: they were going to start a union of drug users. The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) was created in 1997.

Eventually VANDU got a couple of small grants. They used the money to rent a storefront. They spread the word that this space was going to be a kind of drop-in centre for drug users. They held revolutionary political reading groups there. They planned rallies. And they took care of people who needed help.

Crackdown’s Editorial Board consists of some of Vancouver’s most tenacious drug user activists, including members of VANDU, the BC Association of People on Opiate Maintenance (BCAPOM), and the Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society (WAHRS).

We have experience with heroin, crack and speed; homelessness and jail; of the Sixties Scoop, where Indigenous kids got taken away from their parents - which is still happening. But we also have experience testifying before parliamentary committees, or at the Supreme Court. We’ve lobbied prime ministers and international dignitaries.

No one else is coming to save us. We have to save ourselves.

The Editorial Board

  • Dean Wilson

    Dean Wilson is a drug user activist, clinical peer facilitator at the BC Centre on Substance Use, and former president of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. Dean played a key role in the fight to win North America’s first officially sanctioned supervised injection site, InSite. He was a key plaintiff in cases before the BC Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of Canada, ultimately securing the legal framework for InSite’s continued operation.

  • Jeff Louden

    Jeff Louden is a drug user activist and a member of Curve Lake First Nation.

  • Laura Shaver

    Laura Shaver is a drug user activist and has served in leadership positions with the British Columbia Association of People on Opioid Maintenance and the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. Laura is the Peer Navigator Coordinator at the BC Centre on Substance Use and has won several awards for her work in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside community, where she lives.

  • Reija Jean

    Reija is a harm reductionist, drug policy reform advocate and person with lived experience. She is a writer and artist from Vancouver, British Columbia.

  • Samona Marsh

    Samona Marsh is a drug user activist, ethical substance use navigator for the BC Centre on Substance Use, and the former president of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. Samona is a co-author of the Research 101 Manifesto and Project Inclusion.

  • Shelda Kastor

    Shelda Kastor is a drug user activist.

  • Chereece Keewatin

    Chereece Keewatin was a drug user activist with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, president of the British Columbia Association of People on Opioid Maintenance, and member of the Cree Nation.

    Chereece passed away February 20, 2019, one week before we broadcast our second episode.

  • Dave Murray

    Dave Murray was an activist, scholar and founder of the SALOME-NAOMI Patients Association (SNAP). Dave participated in the first heroin-assisted treatment trial in North America. When the trial ended, Dave and fellow participants were denied further treatment, but Dave organized with other patients and created SNAP. In 2014, Dave and SNAP beat the Stephen Harper government in the BC Supreme Court to restore access to heroin-assisted treatment.

    Dave passed away May 7, 2020.

  • Greg Fresz

    Greg Fresz was a drug user activist and member of the SALOME-NAOMI Association of Patients.

    Greg passed away April 25, 2022.