- His goal was to shine the spotlight on dangerous street drugs, though.
Drug addiction and illegal drug trade are plights on society — we doubt anyone would contest that. The real question is, what can we do about them?
Well, we have no answers, but we doubt this Canadian fellow’s approach is the most effective. Jerry Martin decided to open a drug store in Vancouver, and not the pharmacy kind.
And he did it right next to a police van.
Martin’s mobile drug outlet certainly had a decent stock. He purveyed everything from cocaine to meth and MDMA.
Needless to say, the cops weren’t exactly thrilled about an illicit drug store popping up next to their vehicle. Less than 24 hours after he opened shop, they arrested the 51-year-old.
Now, we should point out that Martin didn’t start selling drugs to make a quick buck. Instead, his stunt’s purpose was to call attention to the claimed inefficiency of local drug laws that Martin says has created a fatal pool of contaminated street drugs.
The poor-quality drugs have claimed many users’ lives, including one of Martin’s family members — and his own. Martin perished from a suspected fentanyl overdose a couple of months after his drug store experiment.
A Well-Protected Salesman
Martin’s stepbrother, Gord Rennie, died of a drug overdose in 2022. He told Vice that Rennie’s death opened his eyes to the issue of contaminated drugs circling on Vancouver’s black market.
Feeling that local regulations were utterly incapable of addressing Vancouver’s and Canada’s drug problems, Martin decided to take matters into his own hands. If no one else was going to make sure the city’s drug users could have untampered drugs, Martin was going to do it himself.
And thus, the Drugs Store was born in May 2023.
Martin’s business operated out of a mobile trailer. One of the trailer’s windows was fortified with plexiglass to keep potential intruders from entering through it.
Yet, Martin wasn’t ready to trust a simple piece of plastic to protect his life. He knew what drug users and dealers could be like, so he also wore a stab-proof vest while working at his store.
In front of the establishment, Martin had bright yellow sandwich boards detailing his inventory and prices. And he definitely had quite a spread available.
On the cheaper end of the scale, you could buy a single dose of methamphetamine or MDMA for $10 and heroin for $25. Meanwhile, 2.5 grams of crack cocaine would set you back a whopping $300.
You can’t blame Martin for price gouging, though. He intentionally said he kept his prices close to street prices to ensure Vancouver’s drug users could access tested, uncontaminated substances.
A 24-Hour Operation
Martin’s Drugs Store didn’t manage to stay open very long, though. The police shut the shop down and arrested Martin within less than 24 hours.
That might be partially because Martin opened his store right next to a cop car in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside neighborhood. If he’d gone for a more inconspicuous location, we bet could’ve made it to 48 hours.
According to Vancouver cops at the time, they arrested Martin “in connection with an illicit drug dispensary” that had begun operating in Downtown Eastside the previous day. The police seized two vehicles, Martin’s body armor, and a bunch of Canadian currency from the man.
We also assume that they took his drugs, but the cops weren’t specific on that.
Although no charges were immediately pressed against Martin, he was still under arrest. As part of his bail condition, he was banned from entering Downtown Eastside until further notice.
The cops weren’t entirely unsympathetic toward the man, though.
“We support measures aimed at improving public safety for people who use drugs, including harm reduction services and decriminalization,” Vancouver Police said at the time.
“However, we remain committed in our position that drug trafficking will continue to be the subject of enforcement.”
‘Leaving a Legacy’
Martin had ambitious goals with his Drugs Store. His ultimate aim was to change the Canadian constitution — and getting arrested was always part of his plan.
According to Martin, Vancouver’s partial decriminalization of certain hard drugs had created a “toxic drug supply” that was leading to more and more Canadian deaths. He argued that by loosening regulations without first providing a safe supply, Vancouver had violated drug users’ right to a safe life.
“He would allege that laws that prevent a safe supply and result in death by poisoning contravene section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and must be struck down,” explained Martin’s lawyer Paul Lewin in May 2023.
Sadly, Martin would never get to see what, if any, effect his efforts had. Did you wonder where he got all the drugs from?
Well, he probably had connections since it appears that he was using and selling drugs himself. Even before the mobile drug shop, Martin had earned a cannabis trafficking conviction, but he had been clean for 15 years.
After his arrest, however, he fell on hard times and appears to have turned to old, bad habits. Martin died of a fentanyl overdose in June 2023.
His family suspects that the overdose wasn’t accidental, though. This was a man who would’ve known if his drugs were contaminated — after all, he had a 24-hour-long business testing drugs.
“We know that Jerry made mistakes along the way like everybody else. But he tried to make an impact, leaving a legacy behind so I have a great honor and I really respect him for that,” Martin’s stepmother Mayleen Martin told CTV News.