(0:00 - 0:23) Drug addiction has been increasing around the world in recent decades and especially since fentanyl surfaced in 2013. But few places are as bad as Canada, and especially our large cities like Toronto and Vancouver. Governments in Canada spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year, and yet the problem just keeps getting worse. (0:24 - 0:49) Recently, I was in Kamloops where I met Drew Brougham at a 1BC rally where Dallas Brodie was speaking. Drew is a former addict himself and can be found online on both YouTube and X as DrewCouver56, where he posts regular videos showing what's really happening on our streets. Mainstream media and our governments are downplaying the problem. (0:50 - 1:14) Many of the things you will see in Drew's videos you will never see on mainstream news, nor will you hear governments admitting to just how bad the addiction problem in Canada has become. This is a report from the trenches. Drew, welcome to the show. (1:15 - 1:28) Thanks so much for having me, Will. And you and I, we met in Kamloops not long ago. We were out there for the the stuff that we were shooting with Professor Widdowson at the Thompson Rivers University. (1:28 - 1:40) And then we were both at the 1BC rally with Dallas. And so we got to talking and you were telling me what you were doing. And I hadn't heard of you before. (1:41 - 2:09) And then once we got talking, I came back to Calgary and I went and looked at your stuff online and you're doing some amazing work there exposing what's happening on our streets with the drug addiction problems. And it goes way beyond what most people understand is actually happening. And I think what I wanted to start with was this, because I know there's people, I've seen them too, these images of all these tents in Vancouver, right? And now they're pretty much gone, but the problem didn't go away. (2:09 - 2:38) What did they do, Drew, to hide that? You know, back when this whole plandemic thing happened, there was one park specifically, it's called Oppenheimer Park now, back in, for decades, up until the pandemic, they used to have little league baseball there for little kids. You know, there was a little community centre that's, you know, it's probably about 1500 square feet where there was a kitchen, a little seating area. It was a really beautiful little park. (2:38 - 3:05) But what had happened is they, the government gave societies money to buy tents for all the people that were homeless. And they basically enacted this situation to have everyone put in one space. And I don't understand that either because during the pandemic, you don't want people to be together, but they kind of corralled all the homeless people together in two different parks. (3:05 - 3:34) There was one park was Oppenheimer and there was another one blocks from it beside the biggest fire hall, which again was kind of strange. So they just gave out thousands of tents to people. And we were watching in Vancouver, I was watching and listening to other friends throughout the lower mainland of homeless people hearing, oh, wow, they're giving out free tents and food and supplies so we can get high. (3:34 - 3:52) Let's go to Vancouver. So everyone, not everyone, but a large percentage, I would suggest that the percentage was 30, 50% of the people that were homeless throughout the lower mainland all came to Vancouver. So they all compiled down in Vancouver. (3:52 - 4:04) So there was literally thousands of tents in the downtown area. Now, of course, during the pandemic, everything was closed down. So, you know, that brings you, it brings you about a year away. (4:05 - 4:27) And what had happened is, I don't know the exact dates, but the government started working with BC housing to buy up hotels in the downtown core. These hotels were, you know, two star, three star, you know, they were, they were half decent hotels. The one in particular, the one in particular, well, was called the Hotel California. (4:27 - 4:36) Now it's been around for over 110 years. I used to work there in the mid nineties. You know, they've had the likes of Tina Turner, Jimi Hendrix. (4:37 - 5:01) When I worked there, you would hear the names Nickelback, Dave Matthews, Matthew Good Band. I mean, this was a phenomenal opportunity to have bands play in our entertainment district and the hotel. It was, it was quite a good hotel, but so what they did, boss, is they took all the people from the tents and they filled up these hotels. (5:01 - 5:14) Now there was probably about four or five hotels that are similar, class three or whatever you call it, three star hotels. And they just put them in there. And it was an emergency basis first. (5:14 - 5:40) Now, from my understanding, from what I've heard from people that still live in these hotels that don't have serious addiction issues, but still call this place their home. After one month, they basically had workers from the hotels come to these people and said, okay, you're lucky this is your new home. So basically they were told you have a nice new house and you could stay there. (5:40 - 6:05) So among the remainder, the people that couldn't get into the hotels who didn't sign up for the moving from the streets to the hotels, they were still abandoned on the street. And that's where you saw, of course, well, I'll bring it to that point, which you just asked and sorry for like going a big circle there, but I wanted to give you the story that's important for people to know. There it is, folks, the mighty Hotel California. (6:06 - 6:14) There was a big, big banner, big strip down that side. This building was always here. The hotel, the Bank of Nova Scotia was always here. (6:14 - 6:28) But that was a, that was a, there was nothing up there. They built that as a studio for, for dancing. And that was a California girl, Hotel California, Hotel California. (6:28 - 6:39) This was just the place. But now you can see how they've taken, they've taken the name off Howard Johnson. It is still a Howard Johnson Hotel, but I guess they've changed the name. (6:40 - 7:01) The people that were left over, they all just amalgamated down on Hastings Street. They went basically from Canby and Hastings to Gore and Hastings, which is about an eight block section. And that's where, you know, you'd see the likes of, you know, Tyler Oliveira, all these huge YouTubers. (7:01 - 7:11) They would come up and they would like do click baiting to get more. I mean, God bless. A lot of those guys are doing their work to expose what's going on. (7:11 - 7:23) But a lot of people are just doing click baiting. There's all these tents and they were just like, they were there for a good two years. Now what happened as a result of that is it just became a criminal empire. (7:23 - 7:40) It was just a criminal element for people to sell the drugs on the street. But I think the police, I think the city enjoyed that because that kept everyone in one area. But the problem with it, and I wish again that they would have called me because it was just the dumbest idea. (7:40 - 7:51) It just strained our resources. Our resources are done. Like 7% of ambulance and fire now in Vancouver specifically go to overdoses. (7:51 - 8:07) So that's what happened with the tents and they still happen. There are about one, two, I'm going to say two and a half blocks, two and a half city blocks of tents every night. They start putting them up around seven, eight o'clock at night. (8:07 - 8:31) And the city, because they're so nice, you know, these, these bureaucrats that work in our city hall, uh, mayor Ken Sim and before that there was a couple of other people. They have no idea what they're doing because they're taking advice from, you know, the liberal hive mind. These people that think compassion is caring and we're just going to continue to give out Narcan supplies and safety supplies. (8:31 - 8:42) So these people can continue to use drugs safely. We're going to keep them all in one sector, but it doesn't look good for society. So, Hey, let's hire the city staff. (8:42 - 8:45) And I've got a good friend. I'm going to interview in a few weeks. That's worked there. (8:45 - 9:04) He just actually walked away after 10 years of working in the downtown East side. He was the boss that basically had a couple of teams underneath him that would be that every morning around seven, eight o'clock in the morning, they would go, they would walk. It was just a street sweep boss. (9:04 - 9:15) They would have three or four police officers with them. There was about 10, 10 city workers. And they would wake people up and say, if you don't move your stuff in 20 minutes, we're going to throw it all in the garbage. (9:16 - 9:30) This is what they started to do. So these, could you imagine being homeless, addicted to drugs, not being able to get any supports and boom, there's someone like bang on your tent. Hey, by the way, we're going to throw your shit out in 15 minutes. (9:30 - 9:36) If you can't pack it up and organise it and get rid of it. So this is what happened. So they just started throwing stuff out. (9:36 - 9:47) Of course, what that did was that made policemen bad. It made policemen bad. And that's when the fighting started. (9:47 - 10:05) A policeman's getting stabbed. A policeman got stabbed. I think there was probably more than one, but there definitely was one on the news that that got a lot of attention, but you know, they're, they're confident they're, they're continually confiscating, um, pew, pews, stabby, stabby weapons all the time. (10:05 - 10:24) It's, it's a mess. So to this morning, five years later, is it five years? It's almost, it's almost six years or five is almost, it's almost six years since this whole thing started in March of 2020. I can go down there this morning. (10:24 - 10:35) I guarantee you, I can see I'll, I'll be able right now. It's like nine in the morning, Monday morning. I bet you there's 20 or 30 tents down in those three blocks and there's people sleeping in them. (10:36 - 10:43) Right. But that's 20 or 30 tents, not the hundreds we were seeing before. And the takeaway that I want the viewer to get from this is the addicts aren't gone. (10:43 - 10:52) They just put them out of sight. Right. So it was optics really is what it was is we don't, we don't want people seeing all of this. (10:53 - 10:58) So we'll, we'll buy up these cheap hotels. We'll stick them in there. It's not solving their problem. (10:59 - 11:15) It might be getting them up the street, but it's not solving their problem at all. No, not, not 3%. Obviously a very small percentage that actually take advantage of that opportunity, but they, they normally can't because they're too entrenched in addiction. (11:16 - 11:23) Right. So now let's talk about the myth of harm reduction. Harm induction, you mean? Yes, yes. (11:24 - 11:29) Sorry. I always call it that on, on YouTube harm induction. Cause that's exactly what this is. (11:29 - 11:35) Trying to coin the phrase. I'm going to write a couple of books one day, boss. It's harm induction is harm reduction. (11:35 - 11:50) So we'll just go with harm reduction. Cause that's what the mainstay wants us to say. The myth of harm reduction, boss, addiction, crisis, addiction, harm reduction. (11:52 - 12:25) Basically, if, if you were to give a resume to me, because someone was trying to have a harm reduction work for me, basically have a list of, you know, we're going to support the addict by giving them safe supplies for them to use. So there's less harm done to the person that's suffering from addiction. IE, I'm going to get, people are going to give me pipes for smoking all sorts of drugs, not marijuana. (12:25 - 12:39) They don't give out zigzags, bro. They don't give out zigzags, but they give out meth pipes, fentanyl pipes, cracky pipes. They give out plastic tubing. (12:40 - 12:58) Now this isn't the tubing we saw in the nineties that were given out so that people can use intravenous medicaid intravenous drugs as a result of, you know, being on the heroin. But these are, these are tubes. These are, you know, a half inch plastic tubing so that they can, people can cut them. (12:58 - 13:18) The addicts down there can cut them to put them over the pipes so they don't burn their fingers. Cause you know, we don't want addicts to burn their fingers while they're doing the dope. They would give, they give them little, little tinfoil cups so that they can put their drugs in there, put a little bit of water and cook it up. (13:18 - 13:30) So this is what harm reduction is. So we're trying to reduce the harm to the suffering addict, which doesn't, of course it's right. It works. (13:30 - 13:39) Like it works. It's completely ignoring the fact that the harm is the addiction. Harm is the, the harm is the drugs. (13:39 - 13:42) Yes. The harm is the drug. The harm is not the addiction. (13:42 - 13:53) Addiction is what it is. But the harm is we're harming these people by allowing them to continue their perpetual cycle, coasting in addiction and boss. You never coast uphill. (13:53 - 14:02) You never coast parallel. There's only one way to coast and that's downhill. I think that brings us to your own story because you yourself have been through addiction. (14:03 - 14:32) Do you mind telling us about your own experience? I just got a whole pile of like, what are those things called? Goosebumps. Would anybody ever ask me this on a, on video? So why do I know about addiction? You know, I've gone to school. I've had a, I've had a lot of schooling in relation to psychology, addiction, personality disorders, medication. (14:32 - 14:52) I ran a group home for, I ran group homes, a private contractor with provincial federal government, a lot of different organisations that cared for people in addiction. So in, I think I was, you know, in my teens, as most Canadians are, we're little ruffians. I'm, I'm sure I met you a couple of times or I met you once. (14:53 - 15:00) I'm sure you were probably a little ruffian like me. You know, you're in grade nine. You've got to show up to the grade 11s and start drinking a bit. (15:00 - 15:08) And that's, I think when it really started for me. I had some issues with school. I really didn't enjoy school. (15:08 - 15:18) I quit school in grade nine and started working full-time with a phenomenal guy, a company called WR Ventures up in Prince George. They're still around. Great guy, Brian Irwin. (15:19 - 15:35) So he gave me an opportunity and I was involved in a car accident when I was 12 years old and they gave me his 50,000 bucks. My parents didn't really allow me to manage it correctly. And my addiction just blew up. (15:36 - 15:58) I was doing, you know, I was doing the powder. I was going to all the, in Prince George and, you know, in smaller communities throughout Canada and the U.S., you have these called pit parties outside of town, but, you know, not in town, but outside and there's bomb fires. And so that's when my addiction really started to happen. (15:58 - 16:24) And once anyone gets the feeling of euphoria without having to go to school, or if you're not in sports, that one is just going to perpetuate the cycle of using so that they can make themselves feel better. And not that I didn't feel bad. I had a phenomenal childhood growing up. (16:25 - 16:38) I was a leader in all my sports. I used to be in plays, like I was an actor in stage performances. I'd sing in front of 400 people in Prince George and I'd get a standing ovations. (16:39 - 16:58) So I think it all just sort of all came together when I was about 17. I had moved to, I'd hitchhiked down to Vancouver for a couple of Rolling Stones, Steel Wheels concerts and I think 97. That's when, you know, everything sort of fell apart for me. (16:58 - 17:23) I realised then that I had a serious problem. My money was going to drinking, my money was going to drugging and I couldn't stop that cycle. So by the time I was 23, I found myself, unfortunately, on the streets of Vancouver, where I lived on the streets for 19 months. (17:24 - 17:33) I was one of those that were homeless. I was one of those that got a social assistance check once a month. We call it king for a day. (17:33 - 18:02) That's one of my keys when I go down and talk to these people on the streets and why they're able to trust me is because I have lived experience, you know, and that's where everything didn't fall apart where that's, that's, that's, that's where everything didn't fall apart, but that's where everything was at the bottom of the trash heap. And that's where I was. I couldn't get out every month. (18:02 - 18:22) I tried to get support. I knew that I was going to have to go to a recovery house, a treatment centre. I knew I was going to have to do this, but you know, when someone is in addiction, they have this, uh, I guess it's just sort of like, uh, you know, Charlie Brown has this character in the cartoons. (18:22 - 18:30) I think he's dirty or something. I can't remember his name, but he's got a cloud of dust around them all. What, what's his name? Big Ben. (18:30 - 18:34) Big Ben. Yeah. So all those people like this, that was me. (18:34 - 18:42) I was down there, but I wasn't dirty. Like I, I volunteered at community centres where there was homeless people like me. Um, that's where I got my food. (18:42 - 18:56) That's where I got my, my, my clothes clean. That's where I got my showers. So I was a smart, I was definitely a smart, um, person on the street, but I had this, this, this cloud around me of shame. (18:56 - 19:06) I didn't want anybody to know. Now my family, and I've got a very large family, very large sibling group. My parents were made married 50 years before my father had passed. (19:06 - 19:17) Um, my mother's now in her late eighties. Um, no one knew I had everyone tricked. So I thought a couple of my siblings knew I was in bad shape. (19:17 - 19:29) They'd give me a couple of hundred bucks here and there, but it didn't help. Unfortunately, unfortunately, well, something had to happen. And, uh, I call it a spiritual intervention. (19:30 - 19:36) You know, I call it an awakening. I call it a stabby stabby. I got shanked. (19:36 - 20:10) And I was found behind the shark club by the BC place in a pool of red stuff. And if it wasn't for a tourist from Washington, DC, I still don't know her name, but I, so I was just going to go down, right. If, if, if it wasn't for her, if it wasn't for her, well, I wouldn't be here telling my story to be able to help the people that I, I mean, I try to help, right. (20:10 - 20:24) Um, cause you can only try at that point. My, my family couldn't help me. Um, addiction is, is, uh, when it gets that bad, um, it's, it's kind of like this, this, uh, well, this is what addiction is. (20:24 - 20:46) Everyone I know in the world, they drink and they started drinking in their teens. And what happens is slowly, if, if you, if you drink too much or your addiction takes, uh, if you allow your addiction to take control of you, slowly things disappear. Um, you know, you're not spending your money on cool shoes or new wheels for your tyre. (20:46 - 21:00) You're spending them on the bars at night and slowly your friends disappear. Then you make new friends and you gravitate towards the people that are partying like you. Then what happens is your, your, your work usually starts leaving you. (21:01 - 21:15) You start having to like get a new job and you're fired from this one and next one. And then your family leaves you. And really when, when your family or your loved one leaves you, that's when, you know, every, it just falls apart and your best friend in addiction. (21:15 - 21:30) And I tell this people, I tell, and I tell this to people all the time. The most important thing to these people on the street is their addiction. It's not their mothers or fathers that are thinking of them or their children, because there's adults, there's grandmas down there. (21:30 - 21:38) There's 70 year old women down there in active addiction. And I get calls from children. Can you, can you, this is a picture of my mom. (21:38 - 21:56) Can you look for her? Like this, Jesus kills me. Um, the only thing important to someone in active addiction when it's completely bad like that is, is their drug of choice, because that's the only thing that doesn't argue back. It's the only thing that doesn't talk back. (21:56 - 22:24) And it's the only thing that gives you comfort that that's the perpetual cycle. Well, when you're coming out of that, that euphoric experience and you start getting withdrawal symptoms, you want to use again. And the problem with the whole harm reduction is just that no one has an opportunity to make a decision because their life is so shitty. (22:24 - 22:50) And they're feeling like hell because they're dying inside because of that's what happens when you're you're, um, that's what happens when you're like, you're at the end, you're like in between the high. And if you don't get that feeling, you won't ask for help. So like the medication, all the things that the government gives you harm reduction, it doesn't do anything for the person, but keep them in the perpetual cycle of addiction. (22:51 - 23:01) I didn't have that. I didn't have that. And that's why I think compared to today, I'm so like, if it was today, I'd be gone. (23:02 - 23:08) If I was where I was today, I'd be gone. I didn't have that opportunity. We did. (23:08 - 23:16) They didn't give out pipes and needles and all they gave out needles. I was an intravenous user. I smokey, smokey, the cracky. (23:16 - 23:26) And, um, I didn't even know how to cook it. I was afraid to have people. I was afraid to learn how to cook it because I knew once I cooked it, I was going to be, I was decimated. (23:26 - 23:36) I was going to be done. So this is what happened. I, I, I got, um, I got stabbed in a, in a, in a deal gone bad. (23:36 - 23:45) Well, the deal really didn't. Yeah. The deal went bad and, um, it was on the street and I got stabbed and I walked a few blocks and that's all I remember. (23:45 - 23:56) And the next thing I remember was, uh, Dr. Lim and the emergency doctor, the last 12 months of being on the street, I was in the hospital 13 times. I was in jail, I think 14 times. I'm not sure. (23:56 - 24:18) I've got the paperwork in my, uh, in my, in my office cabinet. I sometimes like to bring it out to remind myself when I'm not feeling good of what it can look like if I want to go down that path again. So I had to make a decision and it was ultimately the biggest decision of my life. (24:19 - 24:27) I had to give up my best friend. I had to give up my best friend that gave me all the answers to all my problems. And I was getting high, getting drunk. (24:27 - 24:37) I was more of an alcoholic. I am more of an alcoholic than a drug addict, but I, I, um, I suffered. I, I suffered, made the decision. (24:37 - 24:47) And thankfully I, I, I got into detox. I went to a detox centre on Thanksgiving, 1996. And, uh, I didn't work for 13 months. (24:47 - 25:05) You know, I collected social assistance and I made the decision when I went into sobriety that I was going to do the right things. I got sober. I took the advice, um, of all the people, whether they were professionals or they were people with lived experience. (25:05 - 25:29) I found that if I wanted the long-term sobriety, well, I had to be, I found if I wanted long, I found if I wanted long-term sobriety, I wanted to have a, I needed to be around other people with lived experience. And that's how I've, you know, attained all the great things I've attained in my life. It's, it has nothing to do with me. (25:29 - 25:48) It has everything to do with the people I associate with. And, uh, those are other people like me with lived experience and we go around helping other people that have no lived experience and they're in their active state of perpetual addiction and they can't get out. I think it's very important for the viewers to understand that addiction can happen to anyone. (25:48 - 25:58) You talked about 70 year old grandmothers. I have my own story, um, not nearly as bad as yours, thankfully. And I think it's because I was surrounded by a loving family at the time. (25:58 - 26:22) 10 years ago, I went through treatment for stage four throat cancer and radiation burns, um, building up inside my throat and on my neck got worse and worse and worse. They gave me liquid morphine and they basically said, take it as you need it. Uh, so by the time I was done treatment, I realised I had been taking about 80 milligrammes a day of morphine on average and I was addicted to it.