PODCAST · society
Crackdown
by Crackdown Productions
The drug war, covered by drug users as war correspondents. Crackdown is a monthly podcast about drugs, drug policy and the drug war led by drug user activists and supported by research. Each episode will tell the story of a community fighting for their lives. It’s also about solutions, justice for those we have lost, and saving lives.
Episodes
-
Episode 59: They’re Running Against Us
A big legal win for DULF means a defeat for the drug war: all charges have been dropped against our comrades, Jeremy and Eris. Meanwhile, election time in BC & Ontario means more fearmongering & scapegoating of drug users. On Episode 59 of Crackdown, Garth and Sam talk about it all with frontline...
-
Episode 58: Toothless Tiger
Cops kill people. They hurt people. They sexually assault people. And when they do, there’s a whole system that’s supposed to hold them accountable, but it barely works. On Episode 58, Garth and Sam dig into Canada’s rotten history of police accountability—and ask whether the system is failing…
more -
Episode 57: We Ain’t Dead Yet
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 “prescribed alternatives” that caused fewer Canadians to die? No, it wasn’t. Table of Contents…
more -
Episode 56: Extraordinary Circumstances
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’t changed, the political favourability of BC’s program has. In episode 56, we talk to safe supply patients, prescribers…
more -
Episode 55: The Man in the High Castle
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 Post Reddit Email
-
Episode 54: Get Sober or Get Dead
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 Children Abusing Drugs Act. And in the coming months, Alberta will begin involuntarily detaining adults…
more -
Episode 53: Goodbye Trey
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 hundreds of lives. He was a friend to Crackdown and often helped connect us with community members....
-
Episode 52: We Will Delete All This
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 reads a chapter of his book called “We Will Delete All This,” about his first time using heroin as a...
-
Episode 51: Goodbye Shelda
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 women in Vancouver. Since Crackdown’s first meeting, Shelda helped us tell the story of how...
-
Episode 50: The Toll
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 on the drug war: over 50,000 preventable overdose deaths. And we struggle to describe how this...
-
What happens when you give drug users drugs?
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. Because even if it’s just caffeine or ibuprofen, there’s a good chance you’re on drugs right now.…
more -
Episode 49: The Best Place
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, Vancouver has become more dangerous for drug users than ever before. Especially young drug users.…
more -
Episode 48: Losing BC
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 treatment program.
-
Episode 47: Low Dead Space
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.
-
Episode 46: The Bench
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, we learn how Canada’s alcohol policies drive illicit drinking. And we hear from a group of…
more -
Episode 45: Recriminalization
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 producer Sam Fenn and VANDU organizer Hannah Dempsey to bring you the straight goods on why drugs…
more -
Episode 44: Kids on the Block Part 3 – Danny
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 lives of young people who use drugs, we need a regulated, non-toxic drug supply. On episode 44, we…
more -
Episode 43: Kids on the Block Part 2 – Jade
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 there is one thing these conservatives are right about: Canadian kids have never been less safe....
-
Episode 42: Kids on the Block Part 1 – Bones
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 rhetoric is rolling back life-saving, public health responses to the overdose crisis. But now young...
-
Episode 41: New Front, Old War
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 backwards. They’ve fallen in line with a nation-wide moral panic and are actively rolling back the...
-
Episode 40: Boys Don’t Cry
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 pain caused by injury and gruelling physical labour. On the 40th episode of Crackdown, we tell…
more -
Episode 39: Backlash
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.
-
Episode 38: The Knock
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 come to take your kids away. Many moms are rightly scared to access safer supply, harm…
more -
Episode 37: Drugstore Cowboy
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 politicians. But really, everyone’s shared their meds. I’ve done it and I bet you have too – as an act of...
-
Episode 36: Some Exceptions Apply
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 fighting for decrim for decades. The goal has always been to stop arrests and get cops out of our lives. We got a watered …...
-
Episode 35: On the Clock
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 much harm. Are they worth it? We wonder about this when it comes to drug decriminalization. Next...
-
Psychoactive Swap
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 and Psychoactive podcast are swapping episodes. They played our episode on the Drug User Liberation...
-
Episode 34: The Iron Law
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, courts and jails out of our lives. It means police stop harassing, arresting and seizing dope off of...
-
Episode 33: You Will Not Destroy Me
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 of kʷikʷəƛ̓əm territory just outside of Vancouver – was largely closed in 2012. Today it’s a…
more -
Episode 32: Goodbye Greg
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 death feel better, but at least we can feel “not better” together. That camaraderie? It’s the only...
-
Episode 31: Love, Death and Benzodope
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. People are passing out for hours, losing their memories, and getting robbed and assaulted. And deaths have...
-
Episode 30: DULF
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 has stepped up to do what the policy makers refuse to do themselves: offer people a safe version...
-
Episode 29: Resign
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 have passed through our lives as those numbers got bigger, only to move on after a few years?...
-
Episode 28: After the Flood
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 become more and more grim. What would it feel like to endure all of this as a young person? What...
-
Yard Tales Swap
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 forbidden spaces hosted by Luz Fleming. Some stories feature border crossings, life altering events,...
-
Episode 27: Cop Baked In
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 methadone or heroin. On episode 27 of Crackdown, we tell the story of Crackdown Editorial Board…
more -
Live at AAA 2019
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 feels like when anthropology is done to us, when we are its subjects – its Guinea pigs. But in this…
more -
Episode 26: Artificial Energy
On Episode 26 of Crackdown, we look at crystal meth and the need to adapt to an unrelenting world.
-
Episode 25: The Lab
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 as a chronic disease to be treated by limiting euphoria, prescribing “safer” analogues, or...
-
Episode 24: If It Wasn’t Drugs It Would Be Something Else
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 discuss the relationship between the movement to decriminalize drugs and the movement to defund and...
-
Episode 23: Cop Free Future
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 Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. If he gets it, the city could decriminalize the simple possession…
more -
Episode 22: We’re Not Afraid of Needles Around Here
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. For years, drug users have looked at medical and public health interventions critically,...
-
Canadaland Swap
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 November - The Brayden Bushby Trial And Pity Porn. In this episode, Jesse Brown interviews Jody Porter,...
-
Episode 21: Control
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 often backfire. CREDITS Crackdown is produced on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and...
-
Updates
The next episode is delayed a few weeks. In the meantime, here's what we've been up to.
-
Episode 20: Cut Off
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 on morphine pills for his chronic pain. The medication allowed Jeff to find some stability and...
-
Episode 19: Losing Hope
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 things can't get much bleaker, they do. On today's show Garth interviews Tim Slaney. Tim is a harm...
-
Episode 18: Blue Metal Fence
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 still lining up for food. And lining up to get into supervised injection sites. Vancouver’s biggest...
-
Episode 17: Class Action
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 class action lawsuit against British Columbia’s College of Pharmacists, the Ministry of Health…
more -
Episode 16: Goodbye Dave
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 mourn him right now, to remember him and tell stories. Like we did with Chereece last year. I know...
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
ABOUT THIS SHOW
The drug war, covered by drug users as war correspondents. Crackdown is a monthly podcast about drugs, drug policy and the drug war led by drug user activists and supported by research. Each episode will tell the story of a community fighting for their lives. It’s also about solutions, justice for those we have lost, and saving lives.
HOSTED BY
Crackdown Productions
CATEGORIES
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Crackdown have?
Crackdown currently has 67 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Crackdown about?
The drug war, covered by drug users as war correspondents. Crackdown is a monthly podcast about drugs, drug policy and the drug war led by drug user activists and supported by research. Each episode will tell the story of a community fighting for their lives. It’s also about solutions, justice for...
How often does Crackdown release new episodes?
Crackdown has 67 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Crackdown?
You can listen to Crackdown on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Crackdown?
Crackdown is created and hosted by Crackdown Productions.
URL copied to clipboard!