Crackdown

Description Garth and Sam discuss Elanore Sturko, Vaughn Palmer and Tristin Hopper’s responses to Canada’s declining overdose deaths in 2025. Was it the NDP’s abandonment of decriminalization and “pre...

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&#...

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. Share ...

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 Ch...

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 hu...

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 read...

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 w...

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 o...

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. Be...

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, ...

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 tre...

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. Share Post reddit ...

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, w...

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 prod...

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...

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...

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 rhet...

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 backw...

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...

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...

Diversion: a cold, technocratic word for when we give, trade or sell our prescribed meds to someone else. A ghost story, whispered among doctors and now, a moral panic, hollered by right wing politici...

  BC just decriminalized drugs. Well sort of. For the next three years, it’s legal to carry 2.5 grams or less of certain illicit drugs. But some exceptions apply. We’ve been fighti...

Sex workers who use drugs are doubly criminalized. They have to look out for bad dope and bad dates. And change comes slow. Fights for incremental change don’t get at the big structures that cause so ...

I know you haven’t heard from us in a while. We’ve been busy. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes. So while we’re working on new episodes, we’ve done a swap with another podcast. Crackdown ...

Drug decriminalization is coming to British Columbia. And that’s a big step forward. Our movement has been fighting for decriminalization for decades. To us, decriminalization means getting cops, cour...

A spectre is haunting BC’s overdose crisis — the ghost of Riverview Hospital. Riverview was one of the province’s main psychiatric hospitals for a century. The giant complex – sitting on 1,000 acres o...

Last month, Crackdown Editorial Board member Greg Fresz passed away. As usual, we held a memorial for our comrade at VANDU. Sadly, we do this a lot. There’s nothing really that makes this constant dea...

Can Martin and Laura’s fairy tale love story survive benzodope – the next lethal era of the drug war? British Columbia has seen a surge of unusual overdoses – including Martin and Laura’s....

In spite of a massive spike in overdose death, BC’s government still refuses to offer a genuinely safe supply of drugs. Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum tell the story of how the Drug User Liberation Front...

2,224 people died of toxic drug overdose in BC in 2021, says the Chief Coroner. How many months of fatal OD statistics have we seen since 2016? Fifty? Sixty? How many health and addictions ministers ...

2021 was a year of very ominous weather reports. There were unprecedented heat emergencies, wildfires, and Biblical floods. Meanwhile COVID-19, income inequality, and the overdose crisis continued to ...

This month we’re bringing you an episode of the podcast Yard Tales, where Garth was recently a guest. Crackdown’s musical wizard James Ash is also featured on this one. Yard Tales is a show about forb...

Editorial Statement on the Criticism of Suboxone Since 2017, the BC government has been massively expanding access to a prescription medication called Suboxone that provides far less euphoria than met...

Here’s a little bonus content. In November of 2019, Crackdown held a panel at the American Anthropological Association Conference in Vancouver. As drug users, we’ve gotten familiar with what it fe...

On Episode 26 of Crackdown, we look at crystal meth and the need to adapt to an unrelenting world. Share Post reddit Email ...

While overdoses in BC are climbing to unprecedented rates, some doctors still refuse to provide drug users with access to pharmaceutical versions of illicit drugs. Instead, many doctors view addiction...

On Episode 24, Garth talks with the best-selling writer and activist Desmond Cole about how police use Canada’s drug war as a pretext for violence against Black communities. Garth and Desmond also dis...

https://www.patreon.com/posts/49524957 After 113 years, things might be changing in Vancouver. Mayor Kennedy Stewart has written to the federal government, asking for an exemption from Canada’s Contro...

In the midst of a pandemic and overdose crisis, members of Crackdown’s Editorial Board are relieved to be getting the COVID vaccine. But we don’t just trust the government, so we’re doing our homework...

Something different for you today. We’re swapping shows with the Canadaland Podcast. We’re running one of their episodes, and they’re running one of ours. This is Canadaland’s episode  #347 from Novem...

https://www.patreon.com/posts/45543505 Activist Kali Sedgemore and anthropologist Danya Fast tell a story about the government’s desire for control—the way its attempts to detain and manage drug users...

The next episode is delayed a few weeks. In the meantime, here's what we've been up to....

Crackdown is made possible thanks to listener contributions made at https://www.patreon.com/posts/42397641. Thanks for supporting the show! In 2015, Crackdown editorial board member, Jeff Louden, was ...

August 31, 2020.  Today is International Overdose Awareness Day, but so what? Who needs to be made aware? Who among us can’t see the corpses piling up from this endless war? And just when you think th...

The first thing that the plague brought to Vancouver was exile. In March, People vanished. The city looked like a ghost town. But on the Downtown Eastside, the sidewalks were still packed. People stil...

People on methadone in B.C. are suing the government and a pharmaceutical company for decisions which may have contributed to the overdose crisis. Laura Shaver is the lead plaintiff in a new proposed ...

We were working on an episode about the housing crisis during the pandemic. But a couple weeks ago, Crackdown lost another member of our editorial board: Dave Murray.  We can’t all get together to mou...

The government has finally agreed to provide us with a safe, medical alternative to black market drugs. On Episode 15, we dig deep into the new policy and tell the story of advocacy that made this pos...

Governments are taking drastic measures to try to slow down the spread of #COVID-19 - declaring emergencies, shutting down businesses and sealing borders.  But what about drug users? We have been faci...