Garth Mullins

The activist, award-winning journalist, and podcaster Garth Mullins discusses his new memoir Crackdown: Surviving and Resisting the War on Drugs (Doubleday Canada, 2025), with Joseph Planta.

Crackdown: Surviving and Resisting the War on Drugs by Garth Mullins (Doubleday Canada, 2025). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Crackdown

Text of the introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.  

One of the best things I’ve read this season is the memoir by Garth Mullins. In Crackdown: Surviving and Resisting the War on Drugs, Mr. Mullins who joins me now, recounts his life story, amidst the backdrop of the frontline of a toxic drug supply in Vancouver. In the thirty years he’s lived in Vancouver, Garth has been a tireless activist known for leading protests as well as performing punk rock. He’s also become an activist for drug users, and in the book bares his experience as a heroin user, and as a user of safer alternatives. In the book, he talks candidly about dopesickness, incarceration, and overdose. He also talks about darker experiences in his own life candidly and with an honesty that is not just admirable, but I’m sure many will find inspiring. What also comes through in the book is the community that he’s witnessed formed by drug users in Vancouver. It’s often frustrating to see how the community is viewed especially by those that want to use a moral lens. And he’s helped to try and give drug users a voice, especially with his work as host and executive producer of the Crackdown podcast. Like in the podcast, in this book Garth gives voice to a number of fallen comrades, close friends he’s lost over the years. And as you’ll hear, he carries their memory with him in all of his work. Garth’s early years, born with albinism and increasing blindness over the years, which he’s been on this program to discuss in the past, is also recounted in the book. You see how an activist is shaped, and how he’s continued over the years whether it’s in politics, labour or safe supply. Garth Mullins is a harm-reduction activist, award-winning journalist, writer, broadcaster, and musician. He is an organiser with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. There’s an event this Wednesday, 16 April 2025 at the Central Branch of the Vancouver Public Library, with Garth in conversation with Andrea Woo. That’s at 7.00 pm. Visit www.writersfest.bc.ca for free tickets and information. This new book is published by Doubleday Canada. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Garth Mullins; Mr. Mullins, good morning.

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