Owner of Pop-Up Drug Shop Selling “Clean” Substances Dies of Overdose

A Vancouver man who opened up a mobile shop selling “clean” drugs, including heroin, cocaine, meth, and MDMA, died of a suspected fentanyl overdose. 

Jerry Martin, 51, dealt with a cocaine addiction and spent most of his youth homeless, VICE reported. He initially survived the overdose and was hospitalized for a few days before passing away on Friday.

In May, Martin opened a Drugs Store — the first brick-and-mortar shop in Canada and the U.S. to sell illicit substances, but his products were tested to be free of fentanyl or other adulterants. He set up shop in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, the epicenter of Canada’s overdose crisis. Less than 24 hours after its grand opening, authorities arrested him. His partner, Krista Thomas, told Vice that Martin “wanted to save lives.”

“Jerry believed that people were self-medicating their trauma and so long as they were doing that, they needed a safe supply to do it,” Thomas told VICE. “He’s no more exempt than any other human being on this earth. He had his own trauma and unfortunately, he relapsed.”

In previous interviews with Vice, Martin said he decided to open up Drugs Store after his stepbrother, Gord Rennie, passed away from a drug overdose after being released from prison.

“My mom said I should invite him over and I didn’t and he died that day,” Martin said. 

In January alone, 211 lives were lost to a drug overdose in British Columbia — averaging seven a day, CBC reported. Since a national emergency was declared in 2016, the death rate has more than doubled, going from 20.5 per 100,000 to a rate of 47. 

“I am giving them addictive drugs, but I’m giving them safer addictive drugs than you can get on the street, where they might be laced with fentanyl or some other drug,” Martin told VICE News during the opening.

Beginning this year, the city began its three-year pilot program where adults found with illicit substances of less than 2.5 grams will not be charged or arrested, City News reported.

“Substance use is a public health matter, not a criminal justice one,” B.C. Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Jennifer Whiteside said.

Two years ago the Canadian province opened the first clinic offering take-home medical grade heroin, CBC reported.

Similar harm reduction practices are being tried in the United States. In New York City, drug users can go to a vending machine to access free Narcan and crack pipes, Breitbart reported.