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Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library. |
Garth Mullins was born into a world too bright for him to fully see, and too unforgiving to fully accept him. Bullied by both kids and adults, who mocked his albinism and trivialized his blindness, Garth turned to activism and punk rock, and discovered a scene that embraced him for who he was. And yet he still couldn’t quell a haunting pain that had overwhelmed him since he was a child—until he tried heroin.
Garth’s experience as a heroin user—including dopesickness, incarceration and overdose—is an all-too-common story for those struggling with drug addiction. Crackdown is an intimate portrait of his relationship with opioids, and a searing indictment of a broken system. With street drugs getting more toxic by the day, drug users and their families, friends, and communities are left to pay the price. And for Garth, it was this revelation that propelled him to the forefront of drug user activism.
Garth joins us at Incite in conversation with The Globe and Mail health reporter Andrea Woo. These two award-winning journalists discussed a radical reimagining of our approach to drug use, and lead us to envisage a system that helps rather than punishes.