In a landmark ruling that could alter the fabric of drug policy in Canada, the BC Supreme Court has found that the criminal law used to arrest and convict DULF co-founders Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nyx is unconstitutionaland were not guity of drug trafficking.
For those that aren’t aware, the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) was founded in 2020 in Canadia. DULF is a harm reduction service located in Vancouver and runs the ‘Compassion Club’ their goal was to reduce overdose deaths from illicit street which often contained drugs such as fentanyl.
The DULF Compassion Club model:
• Bought drugs through the dark web and paid with cryptocurrency
• Tested the substances for impurities at the University of Victoria and UBC
• Clearly labelled potency and sold at cost to roughly 40 members — selling heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine that had been tested for impurities.
The group was open about its operations, received a $200k grant from Vancouver Coastal Health UBC Department of Medicine and others, while it applied to Health Canada for a Section 56 exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA). That exemption was denied.
In October 2023 Vancouver Police raided the storefront and their homes and arrested both.
Kalicum and Nyx were initially found guilty. In November 2025 Justice Catherine Murray found them guilty of three counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking. The judge noted that DULF’s unlawful distribution was not covered by exemptions granted to the group. Sentencing was suspended pending a constitutional challenge.
2. The constitutional challenge succeeded. On September 29, 2026, Justice Murray ruled that the provision used to convict them was unconstitutional.
Murray found the compassion club reduced the harms associated with the toxic drug crisis and did not negatively impact the community or public safety.
Murray granted a stay of proceedings on the convictions, meaning no convictions entered and they cannot be prosecuted again for those club activities. The decision to throw out the charges also described Kalicum and Nyx as having performed a public service at a “considerable personal cost”.
Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nyx are harm reductio true heroes.
Author: Greg Denham