Crackdown

Part memoir, part manifesto, Crackdown is a perspective-shifting take on the drug war that will both shock readers and change the conversation about drug addiction and recovery.

Garth Mullins was born partially blind and with Albinism into a world too bright for him to fully see and too unforgiving to fully accept him. Growing up, he was often bullied, by both students and teachers, who mocked his appearance and trivialized his disability. But Garth found strength and purpose in anti-fascist activism and punk rock, a scene that accepted him for who he was and offered an escape from the alienation and drudgery of his suburban Vancouver neighbourhood. He also found solace in heroin, spurring an addiction that would span three decades.

Garth’s own experiences as a heroin user, complete with dope sickness, incarceration and overdose, is a common story for those struggling with heroin and opioid addictions. And for Garth, it was this realization, while fighting his addiction, that led him to drug activism. He had seen first-hand the failure of abstinence-based recovery programs, the fatal threat posed by unsafe drug supplies, the over-representation of drug users, particularly Black and Indigenous users, in jails and prisons. And he saw that far from the government being successful in its attempt to curb drug use, its war against drugs had been a deadly failure.

Weaving together Garth’s raw and intimate account of his addiction with the broader issues and history surrounding drug treatment and policy, Crackdown offers a foreceful challenge to the received wisdom about how best to treat addiction and keep drug users alive and safe.

GARTH MULLINS is a harm-reduction activist, award-winning journalist, writer, broadcaster and musician. He is a co-founder of the Drug User Liberation Front, and executive producer and host of the award-winning podcast Crackdown. He lives in Vancouver.