Crackdown
The drug war, covered by drug users as war correspondents. Crackdown is a monthly podcast about drugs, drug policy and the drug war led by drug user activists and supported by research. Each episode will tell the story of a community fighting for their lives. It’s also about solutions, justice for those we have lost, and saving lives.
Episodes
It’s been almost six years since the launch of BC’s tiny safe supply program; also known as “prescribed alternatives.” Although the evidence that safe supply saves lives hasn’t changed, the political favourability of BC’s program has.
In episode 56, we talk to safe supply patients, prescribers and experts who are experiencing the dismantling of this life saving program first hand.
With fascism on the rise around the world, we explore the relationship between Canada’s housing and policing policies and the risk of far right authoritarianism at home.
Alberta is the involuntary treatment capital of Canada. Since 2006, the province has encouraged parents to waive their children’s rights and force them into detox as part of the Protection of Children Abusing Drugs Act. And in the coming months, Alberta will begin involuntarily detaining adults as well.
We lost another soldier from the front lines. Trey Helten, longtime manager of the Overdose Prevention Society and all around harm reduction hero on the Downtown Eastside has died at 42. Trey saved hundreds of lives. He was a friend to Crackdown and often helped connect us with community members. He was featured on the show twice. Today we’re listening back to both segments.
Trey, we’re heartbroken. Rest...
Garth’s new book, Crackdown: Surviving and Resisting the War On Drugs, has just been published by Penguin Random House and is now available for purchase online.
In Episode 52 of Crackdown, Garth reads a chap...
On March 26th, we learned that our dear friend and comrade Shelda Kastor passed away. Shelda was a hero who dedicated decades of her life to fighting for the poor, drug users, Indigenous people, and women in Vancouver. Since Crackdown’s first meeting, Shelda helped us tell the story of how colonialism and the drug war work together to harm Indigenous people in Canada.
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It’s the end of an era in Canada. On March 10th – after nine years in power – Mark Carney replaced Justin Trudeau as Canada’s Prime Minister. We mark the occasion by looking back at Trudeau’s legacy on the drug war: over 50,000 preventable overdose deaths. And we struggle to describe how this epidemic of death and grief has changed us and our movement.
In this bonus episode, we’re introducing On Drugs from CBC.
On Drugs from CBC looks through the lenses of history, pop culture and personal experience to understand how drugs have shaped our world. Because even if it’s just caffeine or ibuprofen, there’s a good chance you’re on drugs right now.
In Vancouver’s East Hastings, the Safe Supply program challenges the conventiona...
Vancouver, British Columbia, is one of the best places on earth – a world class city surrounded by ocean and mountains. If you can afford it, the good life is yours.
But over the last fifteen years, Vancouver has become more dangerous for drug users than ever before. Especially young drug users.
In episode 49, we hear fro...
On the eve of a provincial election in British Columbia, Garth and Sam drill down on the parties’ platforms. Plus — VANDU member Scotty Archondous tells a story relevant to BC’s coming involuntary treatment program.
In episode 47, we bring you a brief update on the show and the harm reduction movement. Plus you’ll hear new tunes from Garth’s band.
In Canada, alcohol is legal and we have a safe supply of booze. So why do some people drink mouthwash or rice wine? And why does the state over-police poor people for public drinking?
In episode 46, we learn how Canada’s alcohol policies drive illicit drinking. And we hear from a group of drinkers who are fighting back with alcohol-based harm reduction.
Politicians and much of the media have been lying and whipping up a moral panic. And now, decriminalization in British Columbia is all but dead. In this episode, Garth talks with Crackdown senior producer Sam Fenn and VANDU organizer Hannah Dempsey to bring you the straight goods on why drugs have been re-criminalized and what the grim implications of this move are.
Right wing politicians say safe supply will hurt kids – that young people will get hooked on drugs they’d otherwise never try.
But kids already use drugs. If we want to protect and stabilize the lives of young people who use drugs, we need a regulated, non-toxic drug supply.
On episode 44, we hear from Danny – a young q...
Rightwing politicians and media pundits want us to fear safe supply and harm reduction. They say these interventions are putting children and families in danger, when we know the opposite is true.
But there is one thing these conservatives are right about: Canadian kids have never been...
Across the country, politicians and the media are fearmongering about children’s safety. They’re using a faux concern about families to attack harm reduction and the drug user movement. And their rhetoric is rolling back life-saving, public health responses to the overdose crisis. But now young people are pushing back. They’re saying they don’t want to see harm reduction attacked in their name.
Toxic drug deaths continue to break records in BC. We need an immediate expansion on all harm reduction initiatives. More than anything, we need a real safe supply.
Instead, the BC NDP is moving backwards. They’ve fallen in line with a nation-wide moral panic and are actively rolling back the province’s hydromorphone prescribing and drug decriminalization progra...
In the trades there’s a zero-tolerance policy on substance use. But the construction industry relies on drugs. Cocaine and stimulants help maintain a demanding rate of production and opioids treat the pain caused by injury and gruelling physical labour. On the 40th episode of Crackdown, we tell the story of one construction industry veteran, Trevor Botkin, in order to explore the culture of exploitation, secrecy, and hypermasculini...
A right wing backlash against harm reduction and safe supply is brewing in Canada. Garth Mullins and Sam Fenn tell the story of how we got here — and what needs to be done to fight back.
Being a mother who uses drugs can put you under constant scrutiny from the government. Especially if you’re Indigenous. You’re judged and watched. You live in fear of that knock on the door, when they come to take your kids away. Many moms are rightly scared to access safer supply, harm reduction, detox and withdrawal management – so they avoid those life saving services because they d...
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