Rally for Safe Supply & Solidarity with the Drug User Liberation Front
By Contributor
There is a rally organized for Tuesday, January 16th at the City Hall courtyard for Safe Supply & Drug User Liberation Front (DULF).
The rally begins at noon.
The rally comes almost three months after Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) co-founders Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nix were arrested for operating a life-saving safe supply compassion club in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
The pair will find out Tuesday if the Crown is going to charge them or drop the case against them.
Local organizers are urging the public to come out to support for Kalicum and Nix and send the message that charging them is not in the public interest, and to demand that the provincial government follow the Chief Coroner’s recommendation that a non-prescribed approach to safe supply MUST be implemented without delay in order to prevent injury or death to the estimated 225,000 people in British Columbia who are at risk of poisoning from the toxic unregulated drug supply.
Organizers say a disproportionate share of those 225,000 people live right here in Nelson, where the death rate from unregulated drug toxicity was 136 per 100,000 in 2023 – over three times the provincial average of 45 per 100,00, and second highest in BC after the Downtown Eastside.
“Our friends, family members, and neighbours are dying in greater numbers each year that this crisis rolls on, and they will continue to die until we address its primary drives: the unregulated drug supply,” organizers said in a media release.
“We need a regulated and accessible safe supply now. Please join us on Tuesday – along with everyone attending similar solidarity rallies being held in Vancouver, Calgary, Trafalgar Square and other locations TBA – and let’s send that message to Ottawa and Victoria, loud and clear.”
