Peer power: how drug user groups navigate harm reduction in Surrey, British Columbia and resist the carceral state

Abstract

The article discusses the Surrey Union of Drug Users (SUDU) in British Columbia, emphasizing harm reduction, safe supply, and destigmatization for drug users. As a peer-led group, SUDU actively resists carceral state policies. The analysis explores challenges faced by peer-led groups, including formation, sustainability, and mobilization efforts. It highlights the need for supportive frameworks to enhance peer-led harm reduction initiatives and argues that such advocacy enables alternative knowledge and institutional innovations that are conducive to building a real world abolitionist future.

Introduction

In response to HIV infections and overdose epidemics in the mid-1990s, community members and local organizers in Canada established the first Supervised Injection Facility (SIF), which was eventually permitted by the federal government through a legal exemption, providing a safe environment for drug use (Hayashi et al., 2010; Small, 2012). In 2003, INSITE, Canada’s first sanctioned SIF under S.56 exemption, opened, and the evaluations of these sites demonstrated the positive impact of such facilities (Small et al., 2006). Maintaining and expanding these sites required efforts from local activists and healthcare providers (Wallace et al., 2019), and calls for safe consumption and innovations like sites accommodating drug inhalation grew. Later, peer-led initiatives, such as the Drug Users Liberation Front (DULF), advocated for safe supply and decriminalization (Kalicum et al., 2024; Greer, 2023). The Surrey Union of Drug Users (SUDU) fits into this long history of activism, embodying the spirit of innovation and advocacy that has characterized the movement since the 1990s. This article will demonstrate that the Union’s work continues to push the boundaries of what is possible in harm reduction and demonstrates the power of community-led responses to the current public health crisis in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. In so doing, this article argues that community-led activism can resist and counteract carceral strategies in public health. By carceral strategies of public health, I am specifically referring to the ways in which the decriminalization of drugs, while removing criminal penalties for drug possession and use, has paradoxically led to a greater intertwining of policing with public healthcare. This intertwining is not a direct result of removing criminal sanctions but rather stems from novel tools embedded in the Section 56 exemption, which has created new avenues for police involvement in what are ostensibly health-oriented approaches (e.g. involving public health facilities in the surveillance, control, and punishment of drug users through health data sharing with police services, possession limits, defining the geographic areas the exemption applies, and/or surveillance of consumption sites). In contrast, peer-to-peer organizing is inspired by the ethos of mutual aid and the desire for peers themselves to work collaboratively keeping their communities safe.

The Surrey Union of Drug Users: philosophy, structure, and approach

SUDU is a grassroots organization based in Surrey, BC, that is dedicated to promoting harm reduction, destigmatization, and building solidarity among people who use drugs (Surrey Union of Drug Users [SUDU], n.d.). As a peer-led group—previously known as ‘The Surrey-Newton Union of Drug Users (SNUDU)’—it grew as a local expansion and initiative of the BC/Yukon Association of Drug War Survivors (BCYADWS). Being a municipal-provincial entity, BCYADWS held a unique position to comprehend and tackle the needs and challenges of the Surrey drug-using community. Surrey is a diverse city with a population of approximately 568,322 as of 2021, an almost equal gender distribution, a wide range of age groups, and a large South Asian diasporic population that includes a large Panjabi subpopulation. According to the B.C. Coroners Service, the City of Surrey has consistently had the second highest number of overdose deaths among all municipalities in BC. Over 14,000 people have died from toxic drug fatalities since 2016, when rising overdoses were first declared a public health emergency in the province (British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, 2022).

SUDU advocates for drug users’ rights, and it challenges drug user criminalization. As a peer-led group, SUDU plays a key role in harm reduction, developing tailored strategies that resonate with its communities (SUDU, 2024a), such as its autonomous organizing that asserts principles of agency and self-determination, challenging the passive ‘client’ framing under neoliberal policies (Smith, 2016). SUDU promotes activism, trust, and resource access, rejecting a client/consumer model (Crabtree, 2015). As a collective of 350+ members, SUDU holds four weekly meetings to discuss drug-related issues and has two active subcommittees, employs multiple part-time staff, and multiple volunteers and provides stipends/honoraria to engage populations who have been marginalized by systems of power (Salmon et al., 2010; Collins et al., 2017). With its peer-led origins, SUDU resists carceral state policies and practices, shaping Surrey’s harm reduction landscape (Mollard et al., 2020). Its resistance strategies, ranging from research and public education to political lobbying and legal challenges, demonstrate SUDU’s commitment to peer-run organizing and advocacy for drug users’ rights (Greer et al., 2019). Over the past ten years, my research interests have intersected with harm reduction advocacy, and over time I have become an active supporter of SUDU. Currently, I am serving as a member of the steering committee.

Unregulated drugs and harm reduction in Surrey, BC

On 24 January 2024, the B.C. Ministry of Health and BC Coroners Service reported that 2511 illicit drug overdose deaths occurred in 2023 (Canadian Government News, 2024). December 2021 saw the highest recorded number of overdose deaths in one month in BC (i.e. 215 deaths) and more than four times the monthly average of people dying since 2015 (Watson, 2022). This unprecedented rise in the number of overdose deaths sparked a public health emergency and call for urgent action (Canadian Government News, 2021). The presence of fentanyl, fentanyl-analogues, and benzodiazepines—highly potent and toxic substances increasingly found in the illicit drug supply—was widely reported as causing many of these overdoses (Canadian Government News, 2021).

Although most overdoses in 2022 took place in Vancouver, Surrey, and Victoria (with percentage overdose death increases of 76 percent, 49 percent, and 83 percent, respectively) the overwhelming research attention remains focused on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (BC Coroners Service, 2023). We know very little about the patterns and needs specific to the City of Surrey (Canadian Government News, 2022).

With a population rivaling Vancouver, Surrey has only one supervised consumption site that is far from the large, South Asian population in Newton. This service gap contributes to disproportionate negative impacts affecting Surrey’s South Asian population, which saw a 255 percent increase in toxic drug deaths between 2015 and 2018 (Joannou, 2023). SUDU operates in this challenging environment, hindered by a lack of localized research into Surrey’s overdose crisis and different demographics, design, services, and politics from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (Kerr et al., 2003; Small et al., 2007).

British Columbia’s harm reduction legislation and legal framework

Harm reduction is an evidence-based, user-centred approach that aims to minimize the health, social, and economic consequences associated with substance use. It does not necessarily require individuals to abstain from or stop using substances (Thomas, 2005). Instead, it provides a choice of how individuals will minimize harms through non-judgmental and non-coercive strategies. This approach acknowledges that many individuals coping with addiction and problematic substance use may not be ready or able to remain abstinent, and this aligns well with peer-led organizing. Community-based and peer-led harm reduction approaches prioritize user well-being by offering non-judgmental strategies to minimize substance-related harms. These initiatives have proven effective in reducing blood-borne illnesses, such as HIV, AIDS, and hepatitis C, and decrease deaths due to drug overdoses (Klein, 2020).

In the late 1980s, Canada was at the forefront of harm reduction strategies to combat HIV among drug users. By 1988, cities like Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver saw grassroots syringe distribution emerge, gaining federal support in 1989 through programs across major cities. However, at the time, federal funding ceased after two years, but provincial support then allowed these programs to be continued. Today, harm reduction programs are widespread across Canada, but may only be harm reduction in name and not in substance (Hyshka et al., 2017). Institutionally supported harm reduction lasted into the mid-2000s. This took the form of endorsing harm reduction within national drug policy; pushing for cannabis decriminalization; and facilitating the inception of Insite, North America’s first legal supervised injection site, alongside Canada’s inaugural heroin-assisted treatment trial (Hyshka et al., 2017). The inaugural trial refers to the North American Opiate Medication Initiative (NAOMI) clinical trial conducted between 2005 and 2008 in Vancouver and Montreal (Oviedo-Joekes et al., 2008). The trial aimed to assess whether heroin-assisted therapy benefits individuals suffering from chronic opiate addictions, who have not responded well to other treatments. Significant positive outcomes that were recorded include high retention rates in the treatment program, a 70 percent reduction in illegal heroin use, decreased engagement in illegal activities, and improvements in participants’ medical and health status (Oviedo-Joekes et al., 2008).

In 2007, Canada’s drug policy shifted under a Conservative government and led to the removal of harm reduction from its strategy. The federal health minister opposed renewing the legal exemption for Vancouver’s INSITE, calling it ‘an abomination’ (Wherry, 2017). INSITE’s stakeholders (i.e. PHS Community Services Society, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, and Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users) fought this in court, resulting in a 2011 Federal Supreme Court ruling that mandated the exemption’s renewal. However, the government then introduced a stringent law (Bill C-2) that made it difficult for new SIFs to open or operate legally and imposed mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, resisted syringe programs in prisons, and obstructed access to prescription heroin (Kazatchkine et al., 2014). During the Conservative government’s tenure, from 2006 to 2015, responsibility for harm reduction policies in Canada largely shifted to the provinces and territories due to federal opposition. The federal Conservative government’s opposition to harm reduction led to a policy vacuum at the national level. This forced provinces and territories to take on more responsibility for harm reduction initiatives. Some provinces, such as British Columbia, were more proactive in implementing harm reduction measures because supervised injection and needle exchange programs were shown to reduce infectious diseases like HIV and hepatitis C and decrease unregulated drug poisoning deaths (Hyshka et al., 2017).

The shared health jurisdiction between the federal system and provincial legislatures means Canadian provinces and territories managed to maintain harm reduction initiatives despite federal disapproval. However, the availability of these services varied, indicating uneven political backing. In 2016, supervised injection sites were limited to Vancouver, with later expansions in British Columbia and Montreal. Naloxone programs and syringe distribution were inconsistently deployed across the nation, signaling the need for stronger policy support for a consistent harm reduction implementation. With the Liberal government’s election in 2015, drug policy again shifted with enhanced federal support for harm reduction services. The Liberals backed supervised injection sites, syringe programs in prisons, and cannabis legalization. They relaxed the rules on heroin-assisted treatment and supervised injections, reinstating harm reduction in national policy (Hyshka et al., 2017).

In 2016, BC declared a public health emergency due to a surge in drug-related deaths, primarily caused by harmful contaminants in the unregulated drug supply, including synthetic opioids and other potent substances. The province implemented a range of strategies, including education, distribution, recovery, and safe disposal of harm reduction supplies, overdose prevention, and facilitating access to other services (British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, 2022b). However, despite efforts to improve access to harm reduction, treatment, and recovery, the drug poisoning crisis escalated annually. The COVID-19 pandemic further intensified the crisis by creating significant barriers to medical and harm reduction services, while disrupting the global drug trade (Tobias et al., 2023). British Columbia’s harm reduction approach can therefore be understood as constituted by a complex web of policies and guidelines aimed at minimizing the negative health, social, and legal impacts associated with substance use. This context is crucial for understanding how the landscape of BC harm reduction policy helped give rise to the mutual aid/peer supported model of SUDU that is abolitionist and anti-carceral in its contestation of drug policy and the criminalization of drug use and drug users.

Pressuring policymakers for accountability and action

Legal frameworks significantly impact the operations of peer-led organizations like SUDU. Peer-run organizations operate within a complex web of harm reduction legislation that can both support and hinder their efforts. In 2023, BC decriminalized adult (eighteen years and older) possession of small amounts of certain illicit drugs for personal use. This exemption, granted by Health Canada under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, came into effect on 31 January 2023 and extends to 31 January 2026. While this decriminalization represents a step towards harm reduction, peer-led organizations in British Columbia continue to face challenges due to broader legal and societal contexts. Despite the temporary decriminalization of small drug quantities, the province still operates within a carceral criminal justice system that perpetuates negative cultural views of drug users and drug sellers. Harsh drug control measures, driven by the unrealistic goal of a ‘drug-free world’, hinder access to health services and contribute to unnecessary drug-related deaths (Al-Nashif, 2023). These measures also create stigma and discrimination, impacting organizations like SUDU in their community service efforts.

A year after the introduction of decriminalization, the BC provincial government introduced ‘Bill 34: Restricting Public Consumption of Illegal Substances Act’. This legislation was passed by the BC Government in the fall of 2023, a year in which over 2039 people died, including 192 people in Surrey. Bill 34 grants police officers the authority to remove individuals from public spaces based on suspected, rather than observed, consumption of unregulated drugs. Section 3, Subsection (1) (c–g) of the Bill states that public areas, such as an ‘entrance to a business’ or ‘an area within a prescribed distance from a prescribed place’ are grounds for this act to be enforced (British Columbia Ministry of Public Safety, 2023). Restricting public consumption of unregulated drugs therefore works in direct opposition to the decriminalization legislation enacted by the same government and demonstrates the endurance of carceral and punitive approaches.

SUDU argues that these contradictory developments enable profiling based on stereotypes, stigmatization, and discrimination against both people who use and/or do not use drugs (PWUD), racialized populations, and Indigenous Peoples, limiting their free movement and right to public space (Surrey Union of Drug Users, 2023). SUDU is concerned that this legislation pushes people into isolation, leading to an increase in toxic drug deaths, exacerbating violence against women and gender-diverse people, and reducing access to social and health supports. It expects that the legislation will exacerbate the strain on an already weakened healthcare system, disproportionately impacting Indigenous, South Asian, and other racialized communities (Surrey Union of Drug Users, 2023).

Another key issue in the debate regarding decriminalization and harm reduction is that of safe supply. In her report, BC Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry recommends using ‘prescribed alternatives’ instead of ‘prescribed safer supply’, contextualizing prescribing within off-label use of prescription medications (Henry, 2023, p. 11). However, this approach remains rooted in the professional health service model, potentially conflicting with the alternative compassion club approach advocated by the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF). DULF has developed a ‘compassion club’ model (i.e. a community-based group organized to provide access to safe drugs with the aim of reducing harms associated with drugs procured from the illicit market) to distribute tested drugs at cost, aiming to reduce exposure to adulterated street drugs. DULF is currently appealing Health Canada’s rejection of its proposed exemption from Canada’s drug laws. Separately, some of DULF’s founders are facing criminal charges. Despite these legal challenges, DULF continues to advocate for safe supply initiatives to address the risks associated with the illicit drug market (Bailey, 2024). Despite an evaluation showing a 50 percent reduction in non-fatal overdose risk, police raids halted DULF’s program in October 2023 due to political backlash against safe supply (Farrell and O’Callaghan, 2024). Consequently, in parallel to DULF’s closure, there was a 14 percent reduction in people accessing safe supply in BC. The ongoing review assesses the reasonableness of Health Canada’s decision not to sanction DULF’s program. Research strongly supports compassion club programs like DULF’s, which align with the ideal ‘safe supply’ model envisioned by participating DULF compassion club members, potentially saving lives and enhancing access for impacted communities.

Stigma is a social process linked to power and control that stereotypes and assigns labels to those considered as deviating from the norm or behaving inappropriately. Internalized stigma can make people who use drugs believe they are not deserving of being treated with dignity and respect, perpetuating feelings of fear and isolation (UK Drug Policy Commission, 2010). While the state-sanctioned legal frameworks discussed above provide some support for harm reduction efforts, they are not able to address inherent contradictions in that they do not actively work to reduce stigma or the hegemonic framing of unregulated drug use as a moral failure. This poses significant challenges for community-based peer-led organizations in their mission to serve and advocate for their communities. SUDU’s intervention on decriminalization and Bill-34 not only represents and addresses the needs of drug users, but it also provides a genuine alternative to the carceral state. In so doing, SUDU actively opposes the logics and practices of criminalization and punishment. Its commitment to advancing abolitionist values is evident, as it recognizes that achieving this goal necessitates dedicated political action in conversation with political figures and decision-makers.

Resisting the carceral state: peer-led organizing, advocacy, research, and community-based ‘unconditional’ service provision

Despite the social and economic precarity endured by individuals who use drugs, SUDU continues to fight for the survival of SUDU’s own community through a peer-led advocacy group. The housing crisis and intersecting rising wealth inequality produce challenges for capacity building; however, SUDU members continue to collaboratively advocate for change. As a peer-led advocacy organization, SUDU regularly asks of its members, some of whom are unhoused, to engage in projects that demand organizing, research, capacity building, outreach, and board or committee membership. Attendance at SUDU’s weekly general meetings can vary greatly. SUDU faces unique challenges in maintaining consistent attendance and engagement in its meetings and activities, reflecting the complex realities of its colleagues’ lives. These challenges are multifaceted and deeply rooted in the socioeconomic and health circumstances of individuals who use drugs. On any given day, a colleague’s ability to participate may be impacted by a myriad of factors that go far beyond simple drug use.

The struggle for daily survival often takes precedence, with conflicts arising from the timing of meal programs, the urgent need for income generation, or the inability to leave personal belongings unattended. Weather conditions and transportation issues can pose significant barriers, especially for those experiencing homelessness or living in precarious housing situations. Health challenges, both acute and chronic, frequently interfere with participation, as do the compounded effects of grief, trauma, exhaustion, and ongoing interpersonal issues within the community. The cyclical nature of social assistance payments, often referred to as ‘cheque week,’ introduces another layer of complexity. This period involves not just the procurement and use of drugs, but a whole process of financial management, essential shopping, and a brief respite from the extreme financial burden and stress of survival. It can affect attendance patterns while simultaneously and paradoxically contributing to a desire for engagement in social gathering.

Despite these formidable obstacles, SUDU maintains a robust and growing group of colleagues, testament to the organization’s value and the resilience of its participants. The fluctuating nature of engagement is not a sign of disinterest, but rather a reflection of the harsh realities faced by individuals navigating life on the margins. Even in the face of exhaustion, hunger, exposure to the elements, and the weight of accumulated trauma, colleagues continue to show up when they can. The fact that some find SUDU meetings a safe space where they can briefly rest without judgment or fear of being moved along speaks volumes about the community’s importance. This persistent engagement, even when intermittent, underscores the critical role SUDU plays in providing support, advocacy, and a sense of belonging to a population overlooked, neglected, and underserved by mainstream society’s ineffective response systems.

Part of SUDU’s organizing mandate is to ensure that colleagues can access housing and good health care and are able to be active in its work. SUDU does so by maintaining close contact with them—sometimes even picking members up by car for meetings if needed—but also encouraging board and activist-advocacy skills development. Mentorship is important, with senior, or long-term colleagues mentoring newer colleagues. However, organizational sustainability is an ongoing challenge due to limited resources. This is not specific to SUDU: literature detailing the founding and activism of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) shows it faces similar challenges in sustaining peer-led activism and organizing (Jozaghi and Reid, 2014; Jozaghi et al., 2018). Even though SUDU has faced difficulties when trying to secure physical space to organize, hold meetings, and conduct outreach, its consistent efforts to create spaces for mutual aid and mentorship are inherently anti-carceral. SUDU avoids narrowly framing harm reduction as service-based, institutionalized, or as a criminal justice response, but instead frames it as central to an ongoing process of community building.

State contradictions: closure of SUDU Bubble Helping Centre

In its early days, one of SUDU’s main organizers was local activist Ann Livingston, well known for helping establish the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (Lupick, 2017). She made a concerted effort to establish a drop-in centre and meeting place for the Surrey’s homeless drug users. In May 2014, Livingston signed a lease for a Bubble Tea Cafe, transforming the space into the ‘Bubble Helping Centre’. For forty-one days, SUDU used the site as a gathering place for the local drug-using community to share experiences and organize around the challenges they faced (Katic and Fenn, 2014).

However, SUDU’s nascent community hub was short-lived. On 2 July 2014, the group was abruptly asked to vacate the premises, with the landlord claiming the City of Surrey had raised concerns about the nature of the group’s activities. Livingston maintained the Bubble Helping Centre was not intended as an unsanctioned harm reduction site but rather as a headquarters for peer-run drug user advocacy. The city’s intervention and the conflicting narratives provided by officials raised troubling questions about the local government’s role in shutting the centre down (Katic and Fenn, 2014).

The story of the Bubble Helping Centre’s closure demonstrates Surrey’s more conservative and criminalizing stance in contrast to the municipality of Vancouver, where VANDU was allowed to prosper. While some municipal stakeholders in Vancouver had embraced harm reduction, Surrey appeared resistant, prioritizing local business concerns over the needs of its marginalized drug-using population. The forced closure of SUDU’s community space exemplified the broader challenges faced by activists who seek to engage in peer-run user advocacy, outreach, and evidence-based research approaches to substance use in the city.

After the failure of the Bubble Helping Centre, SUDU was able to re-establish an office and community-based location in October 2020, providing access to harm reduction supplies and educational resources. Located in Newton, the office offered a range of services, including WiFi, food, and basic amenities. However, in March 2021, a complaint received by the Bylaw & Licensing Services division, City of Surrey—which enforces bylaws covering areas like animal control, business licensing, and parking enforcement—concerning the premises being used as a ‘safe injection site’ with reportedly unsafe and unsanitary conditions, led to complications. Stating that it could not issue a business license for an operation facilitating the consumption of illicit drugs without approval from Fraser Health Authority, the City of Surrey revoked SUDU’s offices’ business license eight months into operation (Collins, 2022). In response, SUDU requested a review of this action by the City of Surrey. PIVOT Legal Society, a Vancouver-based legal advocacy organization that fights for the rights of marginalized communities, represented SUDU in court and emphasized the significant lack of services for drug users in Surrey, calling on the provincial government to intervene and protect these groups, enabling them to keep their doors open (Martins, 2022). Caitlin Shane, staff lawyer of drug policy with Pivot Legal Society, referring to the provincial government, stated, ‘When push comes to shove, they’ve shown very little support, engagement, or help in the way of actually protecting these groups and standing behind them and stepping in with the powers that they have’ (as cited in Martins, 2022, p. n.p.). Shane urged the province to use its authority to support and engage with these organizations (Martins, 2022), but despite the arguments presented by PIVOT in court, the judge ruled in favour of the city, which defended its decision as both transparent and justified. The community-based location in Newton was the only harm reduction site in the area, and its loss left a significant gap for many drug users in South Surrey. SUDU’s engagement with the community and harm reduction, despite facing challenges and the loss of its storefront office, exemplifies its anti-carceral stance and its attempts to create a non-state driven drug user centre. In the next section, SUDU’s use of research advocacy is examined.

Shaping advocacy through peer-led research

Although Statistics Canada, the BC Centre for Disease Control, and the BC Coroner Service collect data on the toxic drug supply in Surrey, their data—which is based on quantitative Emergency Services data—tend not to include rich contextual information (Mendoza, 2017; Allen, 2018; Brennan and Mazowita, 2019; Statistics Canada, 2019; British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, 2020). There remain important questions about how to address this multi-layered problem in ways that incorporate the lived realities of impacted people. In contrast to this type of data collection, SUDU contends that peer-led research can provide vital contextual and cultural insights based on the lived experiences of user-led research.

In early 2024, SUDU conducted a comprehensive evaluation of a local overdose prevention site. This research project exemplified SUDU’s community-driven approach to assessing harm reduction services for people who use unregulated drugs. SUDU designed a rigorous survey process, gathering feedback from dozens of individuals who frequent the facility. The survey results revealed a nuanced picture of the user experience. While respondents generally appreciated the supervised consumption facilities, concerns were raised regarding the physical design, rules, and accessibility of services like drug checking. Many respondents reported issues with operating hours and lack of access to drug testing services (Surrey Union of Drug Users, 2024b).

Based on this feedback, SUDU put forward recommendations to the health authority overseeing the site. This research and advocacy exemplify SUDU’s community-led approach to enhancing harm reduction efforts and promoting the dignity and safety of marginalized populations. It also demonstrates how peer-led organizations like SUDU can intervene in public policy and produce valuable knowledge alongside and in contestation of state frameworks (Surrey Union of Drug Users, 2024b).

Currently, SUDU is conducting a research project (2024–2025) that involves the gathering of qualitative and quantitative data on regional trends in drug use, barriers to services, stigma experiences, and insights into what is needed. This project, ‘United Voices for Change’, is a collaboration between SUDU and Moms Stop the Harm, aiming to reduce substance use stigma, advocate for policy changes, and provide peer supports (Surrey Union of Drug Users, 2023). It involves an awareness campaign titled ‘Humans Not Criminals’ to highlight the stories and perspectives of drug users, counter stigma, and advocate for decriminalization, safe supply, and treatment on-demand. It also features an equity-centred community newsletter and additional collaborations such as peer-led support groups (Surrey Union of Drug Users, 2023).

Political advocacy: pressuring policymakers for accountability and action

In addition to its research agenda, SUDU is actively involved in political advocacy, engaging with policymakers to ensure accountability and action. Recently, SUDU met with policymakers to discuss proposed legislation affecting public consumption of substances. In a detailed policy brief, SUDU outlined recommendations addressing the implications of the proposed bill and highlighted concerns about the legislation’s potential impacts on vulnerable communities, particularly indigenous individuals and those experiencing homelessness. SUDU’s brief argues that the proposed law could lead to involuntary displacement of vulnerable populations, disrupting essential healthcare services, and potentially increasing risks of violence. The organization also expressed concern about the bill’s potential to increase negative interactions between police services and people who use drugs, possibly driving individuals to use substances in isolation.

The policy brief presented a well-informed perspective, grounded in the lived experiences of SUDU’s members and supported by empirical evidence. SUDU’s recommendations offered a thoughtful, compassionate, and solutions-oriented approach to addressing complex issues of the housing crisis, visible poverty, and the toxic unregulated drug supply. This approach stands in contrast to more punitive policy measures. Through these efforts, SUDU demonstrates its commitment to evidence-based advocacy and its role in shaping public policy discussions around drug use and harm reduction.

Conclusion—peers against the punitive state

This article has presented SUDU’s activism and peer-led approach, highlighting how they constitute a direct challenge to the carceral state’s punitive and criminalizing stance towards drug use. SUDU’s work is understood as resisting carceral logics that frame drug use as a moral failing or as an expression of criminality and deviance; against those logics, it advocates instead for a community building, public health-oriented, and harm reduction approach that centres on the dignity, agency, and well-being of people who use drugs.

With respect to its community organizing and political advocacy, SUDU’s initiatives, grounded in mutual aid, solidarity, and the lived experiences of marginalized drug users, disrupt the ‘business as usual’ operations of the carceral state in several ways. Their struggles to establish and maintain physical spaces for peer-led advocacy and outreach, such as the Bubble Helping Centre and the Newton office, illustrate the direct resistance they face from agents of the carceral state like municipal authorities. Nonetheless, SUDU persists in fostering a sense of empowerment and collective action among a community disproportionately harmed by oppressive systems and structures. Their research provides evidence-based critiques and alternatives (Surrey Union of Drug Users, 2023b; 2024b). SUDU’s evaluation of the SafePoint overdose prevention site and their comprehensive policy brief highlighting the harmful implications of Bill 34, the Restricting Public Consumption of Illegal Substances Act, are examples of such activist interventions. Their advocacy for decriminalization, safe supply, and harm reduction directly confronts the carceral state’s reliance on criminalization and punishment as responses to drug use. Through these concerted efforts, SUDU aims to shift the paradigm towards a public health approach that prioritizes harm reduction, overdose prevention, and evidence-based policies. SUDU’s resistance to punitive policies like Bill 34, which enables forced displacement and criminalization of public drug use, further demonstrates their commitment to protecting the rights and safety of drug users and aligns with abolitionist principles of challenging state violence and coercion.

In the context of research, SUDU’s initiatives, such as their peer-led research, advocacy efforts, and community-based service provision, can be viewed as aligning with abolitionist principles in several ways. By centring the lived experiences and voices of marginalized drug users, SUDU challenges the oppressive systems and structures that disproportionately harm and criminalize this community by countering stigma, nurturing and cultivating empathy, advocating for policy change, exposing flaws in the criminal justice process, and elevating the issue of community building as a key component of peer-led harm reduction activism. This aligns with abolitionist goals of dismantling oppressive institutions and elevating the perspectives of those most impacted by them.

However, it is important to note that while SUDU’s work does align with many abolitionist principles and that it challenges aspects of the carceral state, the organization’s mandate does not explicitly advocate for the complete abolition of the criminal justice system or the dismantling of all punitive institutions. SUDU’s approach is based on working within existing systems while advocating for transformative changes in how drug use is addressed, rather than a complete rejection or abolition of those systems. It is a transformative reform that seeks to alter institutional paradigms while still operating within its structures. This position acknowledges the entrenched nature of the existing system but acts with a strategic engagement that posits a reimagining of current structures. It is a form of ‘non-reformist reform’, which may risk co-option of transformative goals, but whose risk may be necessary for a meaningful engagement leading to sustainable change (Gorz, 1968; Gilmore, 2007). Transformative reform in drug policy advocates for a shift from punitive to public health-oriented approaches, challenging the underlying assumptions of prohibition and criminalization while working within legal frameworks to effect change. This approach involves reframing drug use as a health issue, reallocating resources to treatment and harm reduction services, pushing for decriminalization of personal drug use, and promoting evidence-based policies that prioritize community engagement and well-being over punishment.

Ultimately, while SUDU’s peer-led activism and advocacy efforts represent a significant challenge to the carceral state’s approach to drug use, their impact on abolitionist goals may be indirect or incremental. The local impacts on their own membership are striking, however, as the creation of greater drug user dignity and the valorization of drug user voices occur. By centring the voices of marginalized communities, promoting harm reduction, and advocating for evidence-based policies, SUDU’s work contributes to the broader movement towards more just and humane approaches to drug use and social issues that align strongly with abolitionist thought and practice. From a community development perspective, SUDU’s approach empowers drug users to become agents of change within their own communities, fostering social capital and collective empowerment. Their grassroots mobilization embodies principles of transformative reform, working within existing systems to fundamentally reshape societal responses to drug use and challenge deeply entrenched power structures.

Author Biographies

Michael C.K. Ma, a faculty member in Sociology at the University of Victoria, focuses on social justice, community advocacy, anti-racism, and harm reduction. His current research centres on drug use. He co-founded The Social Justice Centre and has a background in sculpture, art history, and social/political thought.