In a bid to transform Canada’s drug laws, Vancouver activists risk life imprisonment

published on July 23, 2026 by Stephanie Harrington in The Breach

In late 2022, 34-year-old Dee and their boyfriend bought cocaine and fentanyl from a dealer in northern B.C. who assured them the drugs were safe. Dee used first, then their partner. When they awoke two hours later in the van they shared, their boyfriend was dead.

Devastated, Dee began using more frequently, a coping mechanism they had first turned to as a teenager to deal with trauma from sexual abuse and chronic pain from a motorcycle crash.

Dee says dopesickness starts as emotional agony, reliving the trauma of their past. Then the excruciating physical symptoms take hold. “It’s like turning on a faucet of pain,” they testified at the B.C. Supreme Court in December. “You can feel every hair on your body. You can feel every eyelash. You can feel every hair follicle … It feels like your body is failing you.”…