(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 - 1:34) Thanks so much for having me, Will. And you and I, we met in Kamloops not long ago. We were out there for the stuff that we were shooting with Professor Widdowson at the Thompson Rivers University and then we were both at the 1BC rally with Dallas. (1:36 - 2:20) So we got to talking and you were telling me what you were doing and I hadn't heard of you before 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 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. 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. (2:21 - 2:56) Back in, for decades up and 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, 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. (2:56 - 3:22) 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. 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. (3:22 - 3:49) 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. 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. (3:49 - 3:59) So they all compiled down in Vancouver. So there was literally thousands of tents in the downtown area. Now, of course, during the pandemic, everything was closed down. (4:00 - 4:20) So, you know, that brings you, it brings you about a year away. 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, a two star, three star, you know, they were, they were half decent hotels. (4:20 - 4:32) The one in particular, the one in particular, well, was called the Hotel California. Now it's been around for over 110 years. I used to work there in the mid nineties. (4:33 - 4:52) You know, they've had the likes of Tina Turner, Jimi Hendrix. 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. (4:53 - 5:08) But so what they did, bosses, they took all the people from the tents and they filled up these hotels. Now there was probably about four or five hotels that are similar. Class three or whatever you call three star hotels. (5:08 - 5:25) And they just put them in there. And it was an emergency basis first. 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. (5:25 - 5:40) 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, and 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. (6:05 - 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) Man, this was just a 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 - 7:06) The people that were left over, they all just amalgamated down on Hastings Street. They went basically from Canby and 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, they would come up and they would like do click baiting to get more. (7:06 - 7:13) I mean, God bless. A lot of those guys are doing their work to expose what's going on. But a lot of people are just doing click baiting. (7:14 - 7:28) 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. It was just a criminal element for people to sell the drugs on the street. (7:28 - 7:43) 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. It just strained our resources. (7:43 - 7:53) Our resources are done. Like 7% of ambulance and fire now in Vancouver specifically go to overdoses. So that's what happened with the tents. (7:53 - 8:07) 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 - 8:34) 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, uh, 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. So these people can continue to use drugs safely. (8:34 - 8:43) 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. And I've got a good friend. (8:43 - 8:50) I'm going to interview in a few weeks. That's worked there. He just actually walked away after 10 years of working in the downtown East side. (8:50 - 9:04) 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 new 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. (9:31 - 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 - 9:57) Policemen's getting stabbed. A policeman got stabbed. I think there was probably more than one, but there definitely was one on the news that got a lot of attention. (9:57 - 10:05) But you know, they're, they're confident. They're, they're continually confiscating. 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 off the street, but it's not solving their problem at all. No, not, not 3%. It's 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. The harm induction, you mean? Yes. (11:23 - 11:30) Yes. I'm sorry. I always call it that on, on YouTube, harm induction, because that's how I was trying to coin the phrase. (11:31 - 11:39) I'm going to write a couple of books one day, boss is harm induction. It's harm reduction. So we'll just go with harm reduction because that's what the mainstay wants us to say. (11:40 - 12:16) The myth of harm reduction boss, addiction, crisis, addiction, harm reduction. Basically, if, if you were to give a resume to me, because someone was trying to have the harm reduction work for me, it 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. (12:16 - 12:35) I E I'm going to get, people are going to give me, uh, pipes for smoking all sorts of drugs, not marijuana. They don't give out zigzags, bro. I think they don't give out zigzags, but they give out meth pipes, fentanyl pipes, uh, cracky pipes. (12:35 - 12:51) Um, they give out, uh, plastic tubing. 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. (12:51 - 13:04) These are, you know, uh, half inch plastic tubing so that they can, people can cut them. The addicts down there can cut them to put them over the pipes. So they don't burn their fingers. (13:04 - 13:20) Cause you know, we don't want addicts to burn their fingers while they're doing the dope. Um, they would give, they give them little, little tin foil, uh, cups so that they can put their drugs in there, put a little bit of water and cook it up. So this is what harm reduction is. (13:20 - 13:31) So we're trying to reduce the harm to the suffering addict, which doesn't, of course it's right. It works. Like it works. (13:32 - 13:39) If I was, if you hadn't. It's completely ignoring the fact that the harm is the addiction. 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, uh, on video? So why do I know about addiction? You know, I've gone to school. Um, I've had, I've had a lot of schooling in relation to psychology, addiction, personality disorders, um, medication. (14:32 - 14:52) I ran a group home for, I ran group homes, a private contractor with provincial government, uh, federal government, um, a lot of different organisations that cared for people in addiction. So in, uh, 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. Now I had some issues with school. I really didn't enjoy school. (15:08 - 15:29) I quit school in grade nine and started working full time with a phenomenal guy, a company called WR Ventures up in Prince George. There's still around great guy, Brian Irwin. Um, so he gave me an opportunity and I was involved in a car accident when I was 12 years old and, uh, they gave me his 50,000 bucks. (15:30 - 15:40) My parents didn't really allow me to manage it correctly. And, uh, my addiction just blew up. Um, I was doing, uh, you know, I was doing the powder. (15:40 - 16:19) I was going to all the, the, in Prince George and, you know, in smaller communities throughout Canada and the U S you'd, you'd have these called pit parties outside of town, but, you know, not in town, but outside and these bomb fires. And so that's when my addiction really started to happen. And, um, 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. (16:19 - 16:27) Um, and not that I didn't feel bad. I had a phenomenal childhood growing up. I was a leader in all my sports. (16:27 - 16:42) Um, I, I used to be in plays like I was a, an actor in, in stage performances. I'd sing in front of 400 people and in Prince George and I get a standing ovations. So I think it all just sort of all came together. (16:42 - 17:03) 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, um, that's when, you know, everything sort of, uh, sort of fell apart for me. I realised then that I had a serious problem. (17:03 - 17:26) 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. I was, I was, I was one of those that were homeless. (17:26 - 17:35) I was one of those that got a social assistance check once a month. We call it King for a day. That's why that's one of my, one of my keys. (17:35 - 18:02) When I go down and talk to these people, I'm on the streets and why they're able to, to trust me is because I have lived experience, you know, and, um, that's where everything didn't fall apart or 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. 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 - 21:33) 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, the 70 year old women down there in active addiction. (21:33 - 21:41) And I get calls from children. Can you, can you, this is a picture of my mom. Can you look for her? Like this, Jesus kills me. (21:42 - 22:00) 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. And it's the only thing that gives you comfort that that's the perpetual cycle. (22:01 - 22:36) 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. 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. (22:36 - 22:52) 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. I didn't have that. (22:52 - 23:05) 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. If I was where I was today, I'd be gone. (23:06 - 23:14) I didn't have that opportunity. We did. They didn't give out pipes and needles and all they gave out needles, but I never, I was an intravenous user. (23:14 - 23:20) I smoky, smoky, the cracky. And, um, I didn't even know how to cook it. I was afraid to have people. (23:20 - 23:29) I was afraid to learn how to cook it because I knew once I cooked it, I was going to be, I was decimated. I was going to be done. So this is what happened. (23:29 - 23:38) I, I, I got, um, I got stabbed in a, in a, in a deal gone bad. Well, the deal really didn't. Yeah. (23:38 - 23:53) 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. 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. (23:53 - 24:00) I was in jail, I think 14 times. I'm not sure. I've got the paperwork in my, uh, in my, in my office cabinet. (24:00 - 24:21) 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. I had to give up my best friend. (24:21 - 24:29) 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. I was more of an alcoholic. (24:29 - 24:40) I am more of an alcoholic than I'm a drug addict, but I, I, um, I suffered. I, I suffered, made the decision. And thankfully I, I got into detox. (24:41 - 24:55) I went to a detox centre on Thanksgiving, 1996. And, uh, I didn't work for 13 months. 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. (24:55 - 25:27) I got sober. I took the advice, um, of all the people, whether they were professionals or they were people with lived experience, 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. (25:27 - 25:44) It's, it has nothing to do with me. 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. (25:44 - 25:54) I think it's very important for the viewers to understand that addiction can happen to anyone. You talked about 70 year old grandmothers. I have my own story, um, not nearly as bad as yours, thankfully. (25:55 - 26:11) And I think it's because I was surrounded by a loving family at the time. 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. (26:11 - 26:31) 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. And it took me a couple of weeks to realise that I was addicted to it because I felt great. I was like, I'm recovering, you know, I've got my treatments done. (26:31 - 26:39) I'm feeling good. And then came the day when I, I just, I forgot to take the morphine that morning. And by afternoon, it's like, God, I feel that crap. (26:40 - 26:57) And it took me a while to figure out what it was. But as soon as I did, once again, like I said, I was surrounded by a loving family and I was able to sit down with my wife and my kids and explain, okay, I didn't realise doing it, but I've become addicted to morphine. I have to get off of it and I'm going to go cold turkey. (26:58 - 27:13) So I went through that week of hell of withdrawal, but fortunately I had that supportive family around me. If I didn't have that, I strongly suspect I would have failed. I would have stayed on the morphine and then I would have had a real problem getting off of it even later. (27:14 - 27:33) So, you know, you have those experiences where, like I said, anyone could end up addicted for you. It was an accident when you were 12 years old and put you in pain and they started you on drugs and that led to the addiction. I went through cancer treatment and, you know, the burning in my throat was so bad that by a few weeks into treatment, I couldn't even swallow water. (27:33 - 27:45) They had to put a tube down my nose so I could, you know, eat and drink because I couldn't, you know, I couldn't even swallow. And so you get on this medication and the next thing you know, you're addicted to it. And it's the only thing that makes you feel good. (27:46 - 27:51) You know, you feel like crap. And so it can happen to anyone. Yeah. (27:51 - 28:27) Now, if I, if I can, if I can interject, uh, well, if I can interject, I want to make sure that everyone understands addiction and is our drugs are, is alcohol addicting, are drugs addicting, is sex addicting, is shopping addiction. You know, from like 2000 to 2015, the number one addiction in North America was shopping. One of the biggest businesses in the United States of America during that time was storage lockers because people would fill their homes with stuff and they'd have too much stuff. (28:27 - 28:30) So they'd rent storage lockers. I'm not kidding you. This is the facts. (28:31 - 28:40) So I don't think when, when people use the word, you know, drugs are addictive. I don't think it is. I actually think it's addiction. (28:40 - 29:07) I call it addictive personality disorder. And I think every single person on the face of the earth has it. But unfortunately, like you said, if you don't have the proper supports, when you're going down that path and you don't have the right people just calling you out on your shit, bro, like you just, why are you buying cars all the time? I'm like, I used to have, we used to have competitions between my five buddies that all work together. (29:07 - 29:21) He would buy a 45 inch TV and then the next guy would buy a 50 and the next guy would I got the 70 inch TV, by the way, but this is, this is what happens. So I don't think like, yes, drugs make you feel good. Yes. (29:21 - 29:26) Alcohol makes, yes. Shopping makes you, yes. Driving fast cars make you feel good. (29:27 - 30:01) But unfortunately the drugs and the alcohol are so over consuming spiritually that it takes over your spirit. And once your spirit goes down, that's when I think it's like a, it's almost like a switch somewhere in your spirit, not in your mind, not in your physical presence, but in your, in your spirit where you can't say no, you can't stop. So I want to make sure your viewers know that it's, yes, drugs are addicting, but it's, it's the environment that you live in that creates the, the, the badness. (30:01 - 30:19) You know, I, I know I have friends that, you know, I do personal protection work for some of the biggest NFL and NBA stars. Well, I used to before the pandemic, I still do for a couple of guys when they come to Vancouver, but these guys are like, and I played professional. I mean, I played football at a very high level too. (30:19 - 30:35) So I understand what, that's addicting. I became, I got on NFL, I got to go to a couple of NFL teams and try out. Now, how did I get there? Well, I was, first off, I was a phenomenal gifted athlete. (30:35 - 30:53) Second of all, I trained religiously three times a day, seven days a week. You know, thirdly, I hung out with other football players and learned the art of football. So that gave me the opportunity to have that opportunity to play sports at a high level. (30:53 - 31:06) And then, you know, when you get there, you look at professional athletes and you hear about them all the time. What's the guy we're all talking about? Singh Horton so much. It was a Donald Brashear or someone that was actually had lost everything after his NHL career, Stanley cups. (31:06 - 31:15) He's working with Tim Horton's back east of Newfoundland or something, Halifax. I don't know if you remember that, but, but this is what happens. We, we are all consuming over something. (31:15 - 31:28) So I think the best thing moving forward for everyone, I'm writing a book about this, all this stuff. I think the key is balance is how do you have balance? So the addiction doesn't become rampant. And again, boss, I I've, I've gone through it. (31:28 - 31:50) And, you know, the second part of my addiction quickly is in, I've had, I didn't have the opportunity to play professional football. I was called, uh, what did my friends that played in the NFL call me? I was, it could have been, I wasn't a wannabe. I wasn't a has been, but I was, it could have been because three weeks before camp in 2000, in 1999, I broke my back. (31:50 - 32:09) That was my first back injury surgery, 2008 again, second back surgery. And I came out of the hospital and the doctors had me on five, five different medications. I left the hospital two months later with, with a forearm crutches. (32:09 - 32:19) I had to learn how to walk again. I was paralysed. And I came back from that, but unfortunately I was now physically dependent to oxycodone, which is pharmaceutical grade heroin. (32:20 - 32:31) About eight years after that, I had a specialist doctor in a graph. He was the head of the pain clinic pain. He was the head of the, he was the head of the pain department. (32:31 - 32:45) They didn't call it the pain clinic. It was just the pain department then. Um, and I went into his office and I said, why do the doctors keep trying to get me on methadone or hydromorphine when, when I've done all that stuff, I haven't done methadone, but I've done that. (32:45 - 32:48) Some of that stuff. And this is the one that, that works. I'm managing. (32:49 - 32:58) I'm, I was at the time managing a fairly large as 2012. I'm managing a fairly large company. That's my own that I started grassroots. (32:59 - 33:14) I was doing fine. And he looked at me and it was like someone had punched me in the head as he looked at me. And he said, Andrew, do you know what oxys are? And I'm like, no, I mean, I can't, I can't go four or five days without taking a couple. (33:15 - 33:27) He said, oxycodone it's pharmaceutical grade heroin. It's like the best heroin that one can get. It's synthesised to the point where, you know, exactly what dose you're getting exactly what time. (33:27 - 33:39) And it was like, someone hit me upside the head. And for years, almost, almost a decade, I was like, I was trying profusely to get off of them, but I couldn't. Again, I could go three or four days without taking them. (33:40 - 34:21) Usually when I went skiing or, you know, when I was down in the ocean, deep sea fishing in Mexico or, you know, up, up north in Alaska hunting, I'd take some extras a hundred percent, but it was in 2019 when a second back surgery, a second, it was in 2019 when a second injury or a 15th injury happened to my back that I unfortunately went into the hospital and the doctors just, we'll just give Andrew a little bit more. So I left the hospital on about 140 milligrammes of oxys a day. And that's when, that's when everything fell apart again. (34:22 - 34:51) It wasn't until 2023 that I, you know, pretty much had a questionable friend. Well, he's, he's one of my best friends, but he's a questionable dude, locked me up in a house and helped me do what I needed to do, which was get clean again. And that's led me to, I guess here, well, my mission in life is to, um, support the people that are on the street. (34:52 - 35:19) A, B, let the world know what the government's doing, because I honestly, I don't want to make them bad people because they're our government at the end of the day. But I think some people in our government don't really have the lived experiences needed in order to like support the people on the street. They're listening to these NGOs and all these other things. (35:19 - 35:38) And we can get into that at a separate time, but they're listening to these people and these people are all looking at money because they're addicted to money and they think harm reduction is good. They think safe supply is good and it's not for the addict. So if that's my message, you know, that's, that's what it is. (35:38 - 35:54) Well, let's talk about those NGOs, because this is not the first time I've heard this kind of story. And, uh, you know, another person who I've interviewed a number of times, this, uh, Pastor Artur Pawlowski here in Calgary. And he's, he's set up, um, you know, ways to help people actually get off the streets. (35:54 - 36:08) And this has been going on for a long time that, that then what happens is that the government and other organisations go after him to persecute him. And the reason is that the government shelters get paid by the head. So they have no interest in getting these people off the street. (36:08 - 36:19) But what Pastor Artur's doing, he's actually getting people off the street. So he's, he's killing their business. And I suspect your story about your book, tell us about these NGOs is going to be very much the same kind of thing, isn't it? Yeah. (36:19 - 36:29) So again, we have to go back to the person that's suffering. I called, I call it the art of the art of suffering. I'm going to write a book about that one too. (36:29 - 36:41) The art of suffering. What is addiction really? Um, you know, that you're on your, you're on the street, you're, you're failing at, you failed at life. Like you failed at, uh, you're on the street. (36:41 - 36:51) You failed at living in society. You, you, you're not living in society. You're living on the street and you're suffering in addiction related to these drugs. (36:51 - 37:12) And unless something happens and you and I've talked about this, this pastor guy, unless you have some sort of experience or awakening, you're not going to stop. And that's the sad part about it. You need to have some kind of like wake up in that point between, uh, you know, you're high and you're not, you're, you're not high. (37:13 - 37:20) And you're high. It's that, it's that. That's the cornerstone of someone's transference into recovery. (37:20 - 37:25) You get a spiritual awakening. I got, I can't do this. I can't live anymore. (37:26 - 37:34) There's a, there's a shelter on Granville. There's five clients. They have 11 limbs missing as a result of addiction. (37:36 - 37:44) These shelters, you know, so this is what happens boss. I got to stop you there, Drew. Five clients missing 11 limbs between them. (37:44 - 37:52) That means an average of two each and somebody's missing three. That's correct. I'm not kidding you. (37:52 - 37:59) I don't think you are. Something else I should fill in for you and for the viewers. I was a paramedic when I was young. (37:59 - 38:03) Oh wow. I've seen this kind of stuff. I don't doubt you at all. (38:03 - 38:21) What I wonder is, is how is somebody who has one remaining limb, I'm going to assume it's an arm. Yes, it's an arm. How is this person even functioning? And more interestingly, how are they managing to feed their addiction when they're in a wheelchair with one arm? Yeah. (38:22 - 38:35) It's, um, at the end of this, I don't want anyone to go to jail. Well, well, then we just, we don't mention any names. Yeah. (38:35 - 38:54) Someone, someone's got it. Someone's got to, someone has to have some consequences as a result of this government feeding NGOs, government feeding societies and helping people stay fast. Because unless they have a spiritual awakening, it's very, very difficult. (38:54 - 39:06) It's, it's willpower, you know? And the problem is, and you know, let's get into these shelters and detox centres. There's 760,000 people in Vancouver. Now I live in Vancouver. (39:06 - 39:18) I live in a very, very, very wealthy neighbourhood. I'm not saying I'm wealthy, but I, this is where I've called home for 30 years. Um, there's one detox in Vancouver. (39:18 - 39:32) I think there's 20 beds in that detox centre. So that means there's only 20 spaces, 20 beds for people to make the decision to get sober clean. And what there is. (39:32 - 39:38) Once again, I've got to step in 20 beds and I did some research. I sent you this chart. We're going to put up on the screen for the viewers. (39:38 - 39:48) I think right now we're sitting around about 2,500 known addicts in Vancouver. Oh, 10,000 or more, much more than that. I mean, I would say, yeah, I'm sorry. (39:49 - 39:58) If there's 700,000 people that live in Vancouver, there's under 5,000. I mean, I think maybe two to 5,000 people. They're, they're hiding everywhere. (39:59 - 40:07) They're in the cracks. I live, like I said, I live like that. When I say that 2,500, and I might even be remembering wrong when I, I'm going to put the chart up on the screen for the viewers. (40:07 - 40:20) So if I'm completely off of my numbers, I'm doing this from memory from last week, but I'm trying to show the scale of the problem. When you look at the number of addicts out there and you've got one treatment centre with 20 beds in it. No, no detox. (40:20 - 40:26) One detox. Just a detox. One detox centre with 20 beds for thousands of addicts. (40:26 - 40:44) Well, how is this going to, this, this isn't, this isn't even a drop in the bucket, Drew. But well, I mean, what's the definition of detox? The detox is, um, let's detoxify you from drugs. Okay. (40:44 - 41:01) I'm going to tell you this, and this is, these are facts. If you have, if so, if you and I are partying all the time and we're homeless on the street, well, and God bless, it never happens, but you know, it doesn't discriminate. You like the Herriman and I like the Crackie, but both of us are like, we're champions. (41:01 - 41:19) We're going to go get clean, but we know we have to go to detox in order to get into that abstinent based programme. So we go to detox and what the detox does. Now, if you go to detox because you have a little bit of a cocaine problem, they give you a drug called Dexagen, which is pharmaceutical grade speed. (41:19 - 41:36) If you go to the detox because you're hooked on heroin, they'll give you hydromorphine or some other synthetic heroin. If you go because you're on fentanyl, they'll give you some, any kind of downer. They'll just give you another synthetic drug to stabilise you. (41:37 - 41:54) Then they kick you out of the detox after three to five days, three to five days out of detox and they put you back on the street. Now, if you're an alcoholic, if you're an alcoholic, they actually keep you for seven days, they keep you for a little bit longer. And, but they do. (41:54 - 42:12) And if you're an alcoholic, they, there used to be a drug called Antabuse back in when I got sober, if you took the pill and you drank it, I never had to do this. Thank God. If you drank even a sip of booze, you'd like, be like, you'd be like verbal diarrhoea, right? You'd be like coming out of both hands and that's what that stuff does. (42:12 - 42:39) But today they've taken the drug and they've just dummied it down to like 10% so that when you have a beer now or a alcoholic beverage, depending on your size and the strength of the drug, you'll start feeling woozy and sick, but you won't get super sick. So you stop drinking. And now what the government does with that is now, if you're an alcoholic, they give you a drug and they call you, you have alcohol use disorder, substance use disorder. (42:39 - 42:50) Like, what does that mean? Substance use disorder, alcohol use disorder. You're not disordered. You're addicted to a drug because of a spiritual malady. (42:50 - 42:53) You're a shithead. I'm a shithead. I was a shithead. (42:53 - 43:12) And I'm glad you're saying that because I wanted to interject on that. This whole political correctness crap in our society is poisoning people because there used to be, you know, when, when I was young, at least there was a shame attached to being an alcoholic. You got that, that stigma. (43:12 - 43:29) Okay. But that was actually not necessarily a bad thing because when a person woke up, as you say, that spiritual awakening and they realised I'm an alcoholic, the stigma, the shame would often drive them to get off of it. Oh, but now it's just a disorder. (43:30 - 43:34) That's all. It's just a disorder. You just, I'm sorry. (43:34 - 43:39) You go to the doctor now. Hi, I've got a problem. Oh no, you don't have a problem. (43:39 - 43:45) You just have a disorder. Like a disorder is like a term that psychiatrists used. Yes. (43:45 - 43:53) You know, PTSD. Often for things that are not curable, only treatable. This started with, this started with PTSD. (43:53 - 43:57) Well, post-traumatic stress disorder. Right. Yeah. (43:57 - 44:16) Because everybody's got PTSD now. What a load. When I was going through some, some, some situations, uh, through therapy, uh, therapy, like with a counsellor and my, and some other people with lived experience in relation to what I was going through, a friend of mine, who's a psychologist. (44:16 - 44:24) He's big time. He's a big time psychologist. He's like, Andrew, these, these stupid, these stupid people are saying you got a PTSD. (44:24 - 44:28) You don't, you got PTSI. I don't like PTSI. I've never heard of that. (44:28 - 44:34) Well, that's where we should be training. Post-traumatic stress injury. Injuries can be fixed. (44:34 - 44:43) Disorders can't. So now what the doctors have done is they've called it a disorder so that now, you know, you have to take a pill for the rest of your life. Right. (44:43 - 44:53) But you don't have a disorder. And the mess, the other really harmful message that goes with that is because it's a disorder, it's never going to be gone. You can't cure it. (44:53 - 45:06) No, I might, but you know, I haven't had a drink and I haven't had a drink. Well, and I don't, I'm in my 30th year of not having a drink. I just know that I'm in my 30th year. (45:06 - 45:13) I don't like to say I'm 29 years without a drink. I like to say I'm 30 years cause I have an ego. I'm in my 30th year. (45:13 - 45:18) Sounds better. 30 sounds better than 29. I'll always be an alcoholic. (45:19 - 45:31) I'll always have problem with addiction. Because you always know that if you have that first drink, it's not going to stop there. It's not the 10th one that, that, that, that sends me to the drunk tank. (45:31 - 45:37) It's the first one. Because once you have the first one, it takes over your thought pattern, your spiritual. You're like, I'm just going to have a couple more. (45:37 - 45:53) How many times viewers, if you listen to this, how many times viewers have you said to yourself, I'm just going to go out tonight and have a couple of drinks. Cause you know, I've been drinking a little bit too much lately. And then you come home and the next morning you wake up and you're like, oh my gosh, what did I do again? Yeah. (45:53 - 45:55) We all do. Everyone does it. Right. (45:55 - 46:03) And the only difference between those, those people, everyone does that. And the addict is that the addict does it every day. Yeah. (46:03 - 46:30) And that's when it, you know, that's when it becomes a problem and Keon on this. Well, um, you're, you're, you're deemed an addict by society when your life becomes unmanageable, right? That's when you're deemed or coined an addict and you have a problem. It's when your problem in relationship to not being able to stop becomes a problem for the people around you, the loved ones around you and your work colleagues. (46:30 - 46:41) And when you have a problem, you need support. Yes. So let's talk about the shelters because I'm not talking about the detox centres. (46:41 - 46:44) Now I'm talking about the shelters. I've seen your videos. I've seen some other people's videos. (46:45 - 46:54) These shelters are anything but safe places. Oh, they're truly, they're super safe, bro. Well, let's, let's talk about what you mean by that. (46:54 - 47:15) How many drug dealers are there in these shelters? Well, on payday, there's every other person's a drug dealer, but towards the end of the month, there's about, there's only about there's about at least one, every floor. Oh, two, every floor, two on every floor, every floor of every SRO. I know this because the evidence that I'm getting, it's just, it's all over. (47:15 - 47:24) There's people that will take your check and keep you going all month. Oh, they'll write your check over to you. No, you just cash your check, give them your check money and they'll keep you going on. (47:24 - 47:27) They'll just keep you going on the dope all month. Yeah. Wow. (47:28 - 47:37) Yeah. And I'm not on disability. If, if you're the shelter, um, you get free food that's donated to the shelter. (47:38 - 47:46) That's usually past the due date or expiry. Um, and the other thing is too, it's in a building. So it's like, you're not going to get rained. (47:46 - 47:53) Those are the safe. Those are the two safe things. So you get food, you know, you normally, you can eat something that's past a day or two. (47:54 - 48:07) So you get food and then you don't have to be outside in the rain, but you usually go into the shelter in Vancouver, especially, or in Alberta, wet or cold. So your clothes are wet. So you're still going into a place that's. (48:08 - 48:23) Yeah. So really the only safe place of safe, really the only safe, excuse me, really the only safe part about a shelter is that you won't get rained on. And a lot of people are going in there because it's a dry place to do drugs. (48:24 - 48:43) Oh, you're not allowed to use drugs in the shelters. Not, you're, you're not allowed to, but who's going to tell a fentanyl addict or a cracky addict, that's an active addiction that, uh, sorry, you can't do that in here. And they don't check you on you. (48:43 - 48:51) They don't touch you when you go into those shelters, especially the people today. They're, they're going into wheelchairs. They're going in with missed, missed fingers, you know, a finger's a limb. (48:52 - 48:58) Um, they get, they go in and they're with all types of ailments. The people that are working in there aren't going to touch them. They're not going to search them. (48:58 - 49:09) So they get in and they're smoking it. And, uh, you know, you can, you can check out. I have been in a couple, but I, I respect the people enough that I'm not going to bring my camera into the shelters. (49:09 - 49:13) I just take my camera everywhere else. But there is a guy in Portland. His name is Kevin. (49:13 - 49:16) I can't pronounce his last name. Super good guy. I've spoken to him many times. (49:16 - 49:30) Very hard guy to get a hold of, but he actually went into the shelter down at, uh, in Vancouver on Hastings. And, um, it's the same, if not worse, it's the same, if not worse. They're horrible. (49:30 - 49:38) They're disgusting. They're dirty. Um, and the people that work at the front doors, again, they're usually university students for a second, third year. (49:39 - 49:50) Um, 70% of the, the, the staff, again, the 70% of the staff at these NGOs are actually immigrants. They're not Canadian. I, that's like, that's actual proof. (49:51 - 50:00) Like I got, I don't have proof on the numbers, but I have proof on my video. Yeah. And it's, it's not, it's not racism or discrimination when it's the truth. (50:00 - 50:18) One of the videos that I watched, you're going into these stores that I'm, what I'm trying to sort of understand from the videos is they're, they're kind of replacing the 7-11s. Oh, the stores. They're all run by immigrants and they're just selling crack pipes, paraphernalia, right there at the front counter, the corner stores. (50:18 - 50:44) So I have this guy on one of my latest videos. The guy's legitimately laughing because he's here on a student visa, working at these corner stores, making $10 an hour while living in a home with like, I never told this on camera, but it's on the video. No, I want to buy the cracky pipes. (50:44 - 50:56) What did you call them? The bubbler. The bubbler. What did you say? They're for the junkies? What did you call them? The junkie people. (50:56 - 51:05) Yeah. So what do you think of the 7-11s closing down? It's good for business? I don't know. You're new. (51:05 - 51:12) Yeah, there's a new store. It's a new store. There's like 10 stores, like, just like this one that have opened up in the past, like three months. (51:13 - 51:17) Have you ever heard of them? Maybe I lost. Actually, I'm coming here. I'm new here. (51:17 - 51:21) So I don't know about them. That's your answer. I'm new here, so I don't know. (51:22 - 51:31) And he calls them, what does he call them? Junkie people. Junkie people. What are those people that are coming in here and buying the pipes? I say, oh, those are junkie people. (51:31 - 51:52) I'm like, I wanted to grab the dude by the neck, throw him outside, kick his ass out my country because it's just disgusting. He's making fun of the people that are addicted while selling crack pipes in a box underneath the till. And I've got this all on video and I'm going to expose the shit out of this too, because there's, and the 7-Elevens are shutting down. (51:53 - 52:05) I mean, it's, it's recorded. It's 4,000 7-Elevens across North America that are shutting down in the next six months. I mean, if not already, um, and what's happening like downtown Vancouver now there's, there's, it used to be just on Hastings. (52:05 - 52:17) Now it's on all different big streets. It's on different parts of Vancouver. Where there's like a certain section of the street that's, uh, segregated to immigrants opening up these stores. (52:17 - 52:30) Like there's immigrants opening up corner stores everywhere. I don't know where they're getting the money, but they're selling pipes. Uh, there's one store that actually buys like, uh, plastic sour cream containers, you know, but they're clear. (52:30 - 52:39) And then what they do is they buy a big box of ice cream and they take three scoops of the ice cream. One, two, three, they put in the plastic. They sell that for five bucks. (52:40 - 52:54) Now it only costs six bucks to get a Häagen-Dazs, but these, these, this is, this is what's happening. So they're taking advantage of the situation of coming to Canada and making money, which is God bless. That's called capitalism. (52:54 - 53:02) That's called the world as we used to know it. But today it's just taking advantage of the people that are vulnerable. And the government's allowing it. (53:02 - 53:12) And I, you know, this is the other thing. Well, I, I hear this all the time in our government. Oh, we have so many people working that we've created 15% more jobs than last year. (53:13 - 53:30) Wow. The fact is, the fact is, well, I hope you work on this sometime and expose this because you're, you do a little bit different work than I do. Um, how many jobs are being lost in mining and in forestry in, in, in mills and all those jobs that are attached to it. (53:30 - 53:43) And then how many jobs are being created because these immigrants are coming in and opening up dominoes, pizza shelters, little restaurants, corner stores. There's a lot. Now, Drew, not long ago, you went to the UK. (53:43 - 54:16) So can you compare and contrast for us what you saw there compared to what is happening in Vancouver? I felt like the plane, the plane ride I took was like a time machine, honestly. It's a time machine, buddy. Because when I went to the UK now, uh, a couple keynotes, the biggest takeaways for me in relation to all the things that are going on in the world, um, like they're hiding the addicts in Canada and the US through NGOs and putting them in hotels. (54:16 - 54:30) They're doing that to all these immigrants that are taking the boats over to the UK. They're putting them in hotels and they're hiding them. So that's the first takeaway from the UK is it's a lot of predominantly white people. (54:31 - 54:48) I thought there was no problem here with immigration. And then I left, I, you know, I started in, in, uh, I started in London and I went all the way up the West coast. So we started in London, we landed in London, my two boys and I, and we went up through York and Newcastle and Edinburgh to Sterling. (54:48 - 55:02) Cause I wanted to see where William Wallace's fake, fake, fake, uh, I wanted to see where William Wallace's fake sword was. Cause, uh, back in the William Wallace days, there was no five foot swords. There were only three footers, but this one's like six footer. (55:02 - 55:19) Then I went down the West coast of the UK. So I had a, I, we spent 32 days there, you know, you know, just training and, and, uh, we went on the trains and we rented cars and we just stayed in like, I call them shithole hotels. Cause yeah, I was with my boys and I was there with the girl. (55:19 - 55:36) We'd stay in the nicer places, but the, the, the, the, the problem with migration is absolutely a 100%. I did a lot of investigation to these hotels. I, uh, interviewed probably a hundred of these, they call them boat people. (55:36 - 55:43) I call them humans. I had one really good conversation with an Ethiopian guy. That's got a wife and two kids back home in Ethiopia. (55:43 - 55:56) And he's actually legitimately trying to have a better life. But I think honestly, from my understanding and my experience and the people that I've spoken to, I've spoken to some pretty big Tusi media. I've, I communicate with Tusi. (55:56 - 56:07) I communicate with another Danny Chameo, which is Tommy Robbins, his best buddy. I think about maybe 10 to 20% of the people that are coming over. They're not good for the UK. (56:08 - 56:25) And I do think bad things are coming and they have been in the past five to 10 days, but I've seen online with my people. Um, now let's get into addiction at the UK and let's get into addiction in the UK. As I said, it felt like a time machine, bro. (56:25 - 56:34) It was like the nineties in Canada. Everyone's drinking draft beer and doing snorting Coke at seven o'clock at night. Like everyone's drinking. (56:34 - 56:53) It's just like, it's a nonstop party. Everyone is drunk. Now, if you do any, uh, if you do any knowledge gathering about what's going on in Western societies, we're shutting down mills, we're shutting down industry, which is basically taking these blue collar people like me, like you. (56:54 - 57:04) And you know, these people are blue collars. They drink on the weekends, they party and all of a sudden they lose their job. Now they become all week warriors when they were just weekend warriors partying on the weekend. (57:04 - 57:10) Now they're just drinking all the time. And this is what's happening in the UK. There's so much alcoholism. (57:10 - 57:29) I was, I was blown away. Now the, the, the worst town that I saw this was Bristol and Bristol is of course is where, you know, and I, and I learned things, you know, they say, go on, go on vacation because you're going to learn things about things. I went to the UK to, to do this learning. (57:30 - 57:40) I wanted to learn about where my people are from. My people are humans, but that's where my generations come from. My, my family is from Wales and Scotland and Ireland. (57:40 - 57:50) Um, Bristol is where, uh, and my, one of my sons has got a developmental superpower. He's called autism. Um, he's a super smart kid. (57:51 - 58:18) We were in Bristol and that's where the, the British empire made guns and they brought them down to, as he said, the warlords of Africa and the warlords of Africa traded the guns for the, they called them low value people, Africans. And then they would bring those Africans to North America and they'd trade those people for other products. And those products would come back to England and it all started and finished at Bristol. (58:19 - 58:39) So Bristol is like the super hub for drugs. It's a super hot before it goes into Europe. Usually it goes to Bristol and, um, everyone at night in Bristol, like I walked the streets in Bristol with my kid and they, everyone was doing cocaine. (58:39 - 58:47) Like everyone, I, I was, I was dumbfounded. Honestly, I've been to Colombia. I've been to Bogota. (58:47 - 58:54) I've been in the jungles of Bogota. I've had a very interesting life and please friends wait for my book. Cause it's going to be a good one. (58:54 - 59:04) Um, everyone was doing it and I was like, well, everyone's normal. Like they're just like part of you. And the guys are like, oh, it's like, it's like Colombian cocaine. (59:05 - 59:07) They don't cut it. They don't press it. It's like the best. (59:07 - 59:13) And I'm like, holy shit. Because everyone's just like having out, hanging out, having fun. And they're all partying. (59:13 - 59:25) Like there's a huge area where they have all this, it's called the golden triangle where they have a museum about the slaves and, you know, like where white man bad. And it's, it's really what they're teaching these kids in universities. It's disgusting. (59:26 - 59:42) But there's this, this, the canal, it's probably two kilometres long and there's groups of people on all the, all the, all the, like the little seats and they're having like five or 10 people. And there's like little groups of five and 10 people just partying. And I was just, it just blew me away. (59:42 - 59:51) Like, so addiction there is, is bad, but they don't have the Fetty yet. Um, there is Fetty in England. There is London. (59:51 - 1:00:01) Um, there is Fetty in Edinburgh. Um, I do have a verbal confirmation from some of the street people in Edinburgh. I did a deep dive in Edinburgh. (1:00:02 - 1:00:15) Um, there are people dying from fentanyl in Edinburgh supposedly once a week, and they're putting it in gabapentin pills and they're selling these pharmaceutical. It's the same script everywhere across Western world. And I don't know who's doing it. (1:00:15 - 1:00:43) I have an idea. I have an idea of what's going on, but they're really trying to get rid of, um, I don't think they're trying to get rid of our culture. I think they're just trying to get rid of us and they're doing it through addiction, putting people in these positions where, you know, they're working, they're blue collar guy or girl, and they lose their job because the mill shuts down and then they become weekday warriors. (1:00:43 - 1:00:59) And then, you know, it only takes three or four months. Most people, they say, um, from my research, most people only have three months of, of money in the bank. If you've got a house, I mean, that's great, but usually people only have, you know, 10 to 20 K in the bank at any one time. (1:00:59 - 1:01:24) They think they're okay with that much, but the reality, reality is in today's world, you're not, you need six months because people are losing their work and they just fall into addiction. They fall into addiction and they can't get out because there's no hope for them. Well, you know, you can live on welfare and, you know, today and today welfare, like go back to the shelters and, you know, put this in here. (1:01:24 - 1:01:48) Well, somehow someone, I did a dive on this and I actually, I think I did a video on it. 270 million, $271 million per year in British Columbia alone are the payments that go to people on PWD. That means people with disabilities. (1:01:49 - 1:02:07) Now, anybody that's an addict, or if you're, if you go to the doctor and you're like, you know, you got problems and need to go on social assistance because you need to help get levelled up. Well, you go in there and you can get like $900 or $1,100 a month. And that's supposed to help the person that doesn't have an addiction problem. (1:02:07 - 1:02:35) But if you tell the doctor, well, I drink a little bit too much, or I smoke some pot, or I have some problems, that number, it jumps to 1600. So $271 million in the year of 2024 were just the payments that went to social assistant recipients that are on PWD. That's, that's not including like the regular people. (1:02:35 - 1:02:46) That's, I think, like, I think it all works out to about 30, $340 million last year, just for payments. That's, that's not the NGOs. That's not the ambulance. (1:02:46 - 1:03:17) I mean, you know, we should, we should dive in a little bit to the cost that it's covering our government. You know, 6.7% of the entire provincial ambulance workload is dedicated, it's dedicated specifically to medical calls related to drug addiction. 6.7% of all the ambulance calls in my, in my country, in my province, 6.7% of all the ambulance calls in my province goes to overdose. (1:03:21 - 1:03:39) Check one, two. So yeah, so she's not down, down, but now we've got, we've got four service vehicles here. Do you know how much it costs to get a service vehicle? When I call 911 and an ambulance come, they charge, they charge $1,200 bucks. (1:03:39 - 1:03:49) The fire, I think the fire truck is like $2,200 bucks. Yeah. So you're looking at what? So every time they get a call, $4,000. (1:03:49 - 1:04:00) It's $5,000 right there. Holy fuck. And for what? For a girl who's on benzodope, asleep, breathing fine, the whole nine yards, no tender. (1:04:04 - 1:04:10) That's what they were doing when I walked away. Yes. And a lot of it is hidden because it's not the people. (1:04:11 - 1:04:20) Sure. It's the people who overdosed on the street, but a lot of them are overdosing at home. Oh, there's, there's, there's a, there's a huge YouTuber. (1:04:20 - 1:04:23) He's really big. He's 800,000 dudes. He's like from Toronto. (1:04:24 - 1:04:35) He came, he came to Vancouver a month ago and I brought him through the downtown core and he was just like, he's been, this guy's been all around the world. He's been in Haiti. He's had like hung out with barbecue in Haiti. (1:04:35 - 1:04:44) He was like the biggest drug Lord there. The biggest gangster. He's currently right now in Cuyuacan, which is in the, the, the heartbeat of the Sinaloa cartel. (1:04:44 - 1:04:48) He's there. He's been there for a week. Vancouver is the worst. (1:04:48 - 1:05:12) We're standing there. And he's like, Andrew, how many of these buildings are specifically for housing addicts? And I stopped and I looked at him and I laughed and I stood there and I pointed and I actually did a full 360, that one, that one, that one, that one, that one, that one, that one, that one, that it's like eight blocks. And these buildings are all three to six, six stories high. (1:05:13 - 1:05:45) And there's like 30 people or 50 people on each floor and they're all full, like, well, they're all at least 80% full and the people die in the shelters and they go out and then a new person goes in the next week. And then what happens is the government or the NGO gets to double dip because you see if the client passes away on the 10th of the month, which is one third of the way through the month, they can legitimately, they get the money for that person for the whole month. And then the next person that goes in are by the 20th, well, they get a payment for the full month. (1:05:45 - 1:05:51) So now they're double dipping for one month. And I've got this all on evidence. This is, this is real stuff. (1:05:51 - 1:06:09) I'm working with one person right now that is in one building downtown and he has been exposing, but he's, he's, he's terrified of putting his name to the problem. I'm going to be doing an interview with him in the third week of December. Um, and I'm getting them out of the building. (1:06:09 - 1:06:14) I'm going to get them out for January 1st into a place. He's stable. He was a drug addict. (1:06:14 - 1:06:20) He went through treatment. He's living in a place now and the government's double dipping. Right. (1:06:20 - 1:06:29) It's just, it's mad. And there's no like, where's the police? Like, where's the police? Well, the police are too busy. I've watched policemen walk down the streets. (1:06:29 - 1:06:38) They're called, what are they called now? Safety police. They call them safety officers or something, not police officers anymore. They're social workers, bro. (1:06:38 - 1:06:47) Policemen are social workers today. And they just go around and Narcan people, bring them back to life once they've died. And I literally get up. (1:06:47 - 1:07:02) Like I always say this, it's like 28 days later, the movie when, uh, you know, the person's like, he just got bit, he's on the ground and then he dies and then you Narcan him and he likes immediately stands up. Like he had just, it's the weirdest thing. It's the weirdest. (1:07:02 - 1:07:09) He immediately stands up and he's standing there. And then all of a sudden he's like, I'm sober. I need to go get high. (1:07:09 - 1:07:19) And he takes off. I've seen this happen 500 times. Now, Drew, for the really tough question, because you've been through addiction and recovery yourself. (1:07:20 - 1:07:23) You've. I'm in recovery. You're there. (1:07:23 - 1:07:33) But I'm not recovered. You're there on the street and you're, you're seeing what's happening. You've identified the problems with the way the government and the NGOs are approaching the problem. (1:07:33 - 1:07:44) Things that absolutely are not working. How do we fix this, Drew? I mean, let's, I'm going to put you in that position. I'm going to give you totalitarian control over this problem. (1:07:44 - 1:07:52) You get to be the person in the government who decides what we do about this. What do you do? Okay. So first I want a full disclosure here. (1:07:53 - 1:08:15) So first I want a full disclosure. If you're listening to this and you're in the government, I am no way in shape form, scared of you. If you want to bring shit up on me to make me be the bad person, please do because I'm the only person that puts my head on my pillow at night. (1:08:15 - 1:08:22) And I'm not afraid of you. I have good locks on my doors. And I'm just not afraid of you. (1:08:22 - 1:08:30) I'm not afraid of this, the backwash. I know this is going to start happening. The government is going to start, you know, making false allegations on me. (1:08:30 - 1:08:52) If they say something about me or the police say something about me and it's true, I have no problem saying, yeah, I hung out with guys in the last 10 years in Colombia and travelled like the jungles. I have no problem telling people what I've done. I have no, there's, there's, there's nothing there that's stopping me from being honest because what we need to be is honest people. (1:08:52 - 1:09:10) We need honesty, we need compassion but the compassion can't be unjustified. We need compassion and it has to be kind of like this. Naloxone kits, they need to stay but naloxone kits need to go to the people that are actually using the drugs. (1:09:11 - 1:09:27) We shouldn't be paying police officers or firemen to like give out naloxone people like to help people come back alive. That needs to be a choice that you need to make. The person that's out there living, you need to make the choice whether or not you're going to use or not again. (1:09:27 - 1:09:48) And it's going to be hard facts. 67 year old woman came up to me last summer. She's like, DrewCouver, can you put me in one of your videos? And you know, she had like, she looked like she'd been on the street for five years and she's like, I want to talk to you about the Narcan and I'm like, oh, what's that? So now I'm not going to say it so she can say it but I absolutely agree with her. (1:09:50 - 1:10:13) There shouldn't be anything such as Narcan. I said, why not? And she said, well, the reality is people would make a decision whether they want to live or whether they want to die if there is no such thing as Narcan. As dirty as she was, as stinky as her clothes were, I almost shed a tear, but I did give her a hug. (1:10:14 - 1:10:24) And I said, thank you, because it's on video. The reality is you need to save yourself, people. You know, no one's like, no one's paying my rent. (1:10:24 - 1:10:36) No one's paying for my steak dinner. You know, when I get to have a steak once a week, no one's paying for my upgrade on my cell phone. If I need it, I need to make that decision myself. (1:10:36 - 1:10:44) And yeah, it's different of course. It's whether they're going to live or they're going to die. But the reality is that needs to stop. (1:10:44 - 1:11:02) The Narcan distribution for people to perpetuate the cycle of addiction needs to stop. Give Narcan kits out to the people that are using them, absolutely. If there's someone dying on the street, sure, go ahead, give it to them. (1:11:03 - 1:11:26) But the police officers in the fire department, the police need to start arresting the fatty dealers and putting them in jail forever. The firemen need to start saving people's lives in the fires, not on the street. The paramedics, maybe we need to create a whole new class of paramedics where we just have paramedics walking the street, giving out Narcan and saving lives. (1:11:26 - 1:11:46) I actually do know some paramedics and they absolutely believe in Narcan. So I'm going to side with the paramedics because they have way more experience than I do in that state. I think we need to not take the money away from these societies that are supporting SROs, single room occupancy buildings, their buildings. (1:11:47 - 1:12:14) Single room occupancy SROs were created after World War II when, you might want to clip this and put it somewhere else, but SROs were, SROs were created after World War II when a wife didn't have her husband come home. The government gave the money. These people, these women bought houses and they built rooming houses. (1:12:14 - 1:12:21) That's the reality. That's what, that's where SRO came from. In the seventies, the government decided they're going to shut them down. (1:12:21 - 1:12:37) In the early eighties, they shut down Riverview, which was the psychiatric institution that was around for almost a hundred years. Then what happened is all the people from the SROs that were in those rooming houses got sent downtown. And then the cracky epidemic happened. (1:12:37 - 1:12:52) So the reality is these SROs, if they're not going to conform with what I think is best, if I was in charge, they just lose their money. They just lose their money. And let's give money to people. (1:12:52 - 1:13:20) And I probably have, I have, I don't have, I have a list of, there's 72 people like me with lived experience that are waiting to work in a position where they can actually support people, go through the most important thing. This is the most important thing first, is they have to have a spiritual awakening. They have to have some sort of awakening, whether it be spiritual or mental, they're physically done. (1:13:21 - 1:13:27) So it's gotta be spiritual or mental. They gotta go, I gotta get, I need help. Okay, I know I can go to detox. (1:13:27 - 1:13:40) And in detox, I know I can get ice tubs. When I went through my physical addiction, my physical dependency on opiates, outside of my backyard, I've got a $4,000 ice tub. I started doing ice therapy. (1:13:40 - 1:13:50) So I sit in the ice tub for two minutes. This is the same thing. Once I did this, I realised, oh my God, this is what they did in Riverview back in 1917. (1:13:51 - 1:14:06) They had ice tubs for therapy for people out of PTSD and addiction. So they do ice therapy, they do vitamins, they do healthy food and they go through detox. And it's, yes, it's the ugliest, sickest thing that someone has to go through. (1:14:06 - 1:14:30) But unfortunately, going through detox without getting safe supply pharmaceutical medication is going to be one of the most horrific things anybody that's lived on the streets got to go through in order to go. I don't wanna go through that again. And then we open up these buildings that are abstinent based a hundred percent. (1:14:30 - 1:14:50) Now I believe, and I'm working on a project right now up in the Okanagan with a couple of people, they've got some acreage, they've got three buildings on that acreage. What I wanted to do is open up a treatment centre where it's abstinent base is a house for 12 women, a house for 12 men. And the middle building is where they, you know, have their food and stuff like that. (1:14:50 - 1:15:11) And they basically got to go there for 18 months. Now I say 18 months because, you know, six months isn't long enough, 12 months. It's kind of hard because you go through the process and then you get to 10 months and you start getting scared because at the 12 month mark, you know, you're moving out and the reality is when you move out, well, there's no places to live because the immigrants have now moved in and the jobs are gone. (1:15:11 - 1:15:39) So what do you do? So keep them there for 18 months, really give them an opportunity to learn a new tool in order to create a pay cheque so that they can live and be part of our society, the society that I live in, the society that you live in. And well, I don't think you or I ever wanted to be in this position. And thank God there's people like me and you and others out there creating an opportunity for people to see what's the problem, people to talk about how to fix it. (1:15:42 - 1:15:46) Wow. I just said that. But the third part is the trifecta. (1:15:46 - 1:16:10) We're not getting the support of the government in order to do the correct thing, which is, you know, stop giving out vaccines, stop giving out pharmaceutical medication because ultimately it's the, it's the pharmaceutical companies that run the show. Cause they're the biggest lobbyists of our government, other than the, I think they're called the CPP or something like the people in China, their government in China, I think. I don't know. (1:16:10 - 1:16:28) I'm not in that, I'm not in that scope. Well, I know you are, I know you're, you're, you're probably a minor expert on a lot of things with the work you do. And I'm very grateful to have the, had this opportunity to, to share my lived experience, my wealth of knowledge that I have, I do call myself an expert in this because I do believe I am. (1:16:29 - 1:16:55) Uh, funny enough, I have had debates on X with some of these big officials on X, these big NGOs, I've had debates with them because I'm so small that they don't know who I am. And I start asking questions on the platform and I've got the, had them all saved and they're like, Oh, who's this person? That was a smart question. So they start asking questions and they're trying to change. (1:16:55 - 1:17:04) I've got like, there's three of them. Uh, there's Guy, I call him Guy Falascio. I can't pronounce his last name, but he's the guy that used to stabby stab people and rob women. (1:17:04 - 1:17:13) And now he's, he's the poster boy for the harm reduction drugs. And there's the other, there's one other person that I liked, Sarah Blythe. She's a lady from OPS. (1:17:13 - 1:17:21) I've had these debates with them on X and then they realised they're not going to win. So they just block me. Right. (1:17:21 - 1:17:33) They usually blocked me after I asked them, Hey, listen, if you want to debate me on this, I'd love to debate. I tell you what, I'll pay for the hall. I'll pay for the coffee and tea and the snacks. (1:17:34 - 1:17:44) And you just tell me the time and I'll set up the place wherever you want it. And we can talk about this in front of whoever wants to come and watch. I'm blocked. (1:17:44 - 1:17:47) Right. Of course. Yep. (1:17:49 - 1:17:57) What do you do while the, well, this is what we do. Well, we get online. We try to communicate to the best of our ability. (1:17:57 - 1:18:14) What we see is the problem. What we think could be a solution to the problem, because the reality is no one's trying to fix any problems except for, I think two people. There's two people that are trying to solve the problem. (1:18:15 - 1:18:31) Actually, you know what? I'm going to change that except for three people are trying to change the problem that I know of. One guy, his name is Aaron Gunn. The next person is a Tara Armstrong and the lady that I just think is the most amazing person in the world, Dallas Brodie. (1:18:32 - 1:18:37) Yes. Because they're just trying to speak a truth. They're not being, they're not, they're not afraid. (1:18:38 - 1:18:44) They're not afraid of what the comeback is. They're just speaking the truth. Their truth. (1:18:44 - 1:18:55) Yes. Drew, thank you so much for your time today, for all the work that you're doing, folks, you'll find him on X and YouTube and Drew, DrewCouver56. You'll find links to those underneath this interview. (1:18:55 - 1:18:59) Once again, Drew, thank you so much for your time. God bless you, brother. I'm out.