Heroin Compassion Clubs: A Cooperative Model to Reduce Opioid Overdose Deaths & Disrupt Organized Crime's Role in Fentanyl, Money Laundering & Housing Unaffordability

The causal relationship between drug prohibition and transnational organized crime’s growth is well known and has been clearly articulated, while all available evidence indicates that efforts to curtail the fentanyl supply through drug law enforcement have failed. In the face of this reality, this report describes a model that has the immediate potential to address the underlying structural basis that has led to unprecedented levels of organized crime profits, unaffordable housing and opioid poisonings. This model is inspired by cannabis compassion clubs and buyers clubs, both of which emerged in the 1980s and 1990s in response to the AIDS epidemic—the last public health emergency the province of BC faced.