This book tells a story about community activism in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side (DTES) that culmi-nated in a social justice movement to open the first official safe injection site. This story is unique: it is told from the point of view of drug users – those most affected by drug policy, political decisions and policing. It provides a montage of poetry, photos, early Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) meetings, journal entries from the Back Alley, the “unofficial” safe injection site, and excerpts from significant health and media reports. The harms of prohibition, and resistance, hope, kindness, awakening and collective action are chronicled in these pages.

raise shit

we have become a community of prophets in the downtown eastside rebuking the system and speaking hope and possibility into situations of apparent impossibility

to raise shit is to actively resist and we resist with our presence with our words with our love with our courage

by Bud Osborn

Susan C. Boyd is a scholar/activist and distinguished professor at the University of Victoria. She has authored several articles and books on drug issues, including Busted: An Illustrated History of Drug Prohibition in Canada. She was a member of the federal Task Force on Cannabis Legalization and Regulation. She is a long-time activist who collaborates with groups that advocate for the end of drug prohibition and for the establishment of diverse services.

Susan C. Boyd's profile page

Donald MacPherson is currently the Director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition a national coalition of organizations and individuals working to improve Canada’s approach to the use of psychoactive substances. The Coalition is a partner project with the Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addictions in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University where Donald has an Adjunct Faculty appointment. Formerly he was North America’s first Drug Policy Coordinator at the City of Vancouver where he worked for 22 years. He is the author of Vancouver’s groundbreaking “Four Pillars Drug Strategy,” which called for new approaches to drug-related problems based on public health and human rights principles. In 2007 he received the Kaiser Foundation National Award of Excellence in Public Policy in Canada.

Donald MacPherson's profile page

A poet and social activist, Bud Osborn's life and work represents the embodiment of the disenfranchised. As a former drug addict, he never thought he'd be alive today, let alone living a respectable life. Now, seven years clean, Bud channels his energy into helping his neighbours in Vancouver's downtown east side, a neighbourhood he aptly describes as a "third world health horror."
A member of VANDU (Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users), Grief Into Action, a support group for parents of addicted youth, and the Carnegie Community Centre Association Board, Bud spends his time ultimately "trying to save lives and solve problems, not defend drug addicts."
His poetry speaks to those he is trying to reach. Used as a communication and educational device for and about people on the streets, Bud's poetry also serves as documentation of the people nobody else will write about and to let them know they are not alone. From his troubled youth in America to waiting out the Vietnam draft in Toronto, Osborn has finally found a home in Canada's most troubled neighbourhood and the poetry he spins from his experiences transcends borders and communities.
Fighting popular opinion that Vancouver's downtown east side is without hope, Bud chooses to see the bright side of his neighbourhood. He blames the media for doing more damage than good in their portrayal of the down-and-out and feels there is more community in troubled neighbourhoods than in others. Partly, because so many people depend on each other just to survive.
Bud Osborn passed away in Vancouver on May 6, 2014.

Bud Osborn's profile page