Under Section 7 of the Charter, which was used to strike down medical cannabis restrictions, Canadians have “the right to life, liberty, and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.” In Canada, the maximum penalty for selling Schedule I or II drugs is life in prison. Martin started using drugs at 14 and was addicted to alcohol and injecting cocaine by age 15. He was unhoused for the next 15 years, he said, living in Langley, B.C,, Oshawa, Ontario, and other Canadian cities. He said he was moved to open the store when his stepbrother, Gord Rennie, died of an overdose last year. Rennie, who was addicted to benzo dope—a deadly cocktail of fentanyl and ultra potent benzodiazepines, was featured in the VICE News Tonight documentary Beyond Fentanyl. A couple months after VICE News interviewed Rennie, he was found dead under a bridge. Martin said he regrets not letting Rennie stay with him when he got out of his most recent stint in prison. “My mom said I should invite him over and I didn’t and he died that day,” he said. He said one of his other brothers was stabbed to death over drugs in 2000. Martin said all the drugs he’s selling have been tested at Get Your Drugs Tested, a Vancouver facility that uses a fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy machine to detect what’s in people’s drugs. His hope is to open franchises of The Drugs Store around the country, similar to what happened with grey market cannabis dispensaries. Karen Ward, a Vancouver-based independent drug policy analyst, said the store is an “inevitable result of the government doing nothing” in terms of setting up a widely accessible safe supply of all drugs. While small safe supply programs for opioid users exist, providing people with pharmaceutical grade heroin and fentanyl as an alternative to street drugs, harm reduction advocates argue they’re not widespread enough. They also don’t cover drugs like cocaine and meth. Ward said the city should give Martin a license to operate legally.
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