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Crackdown by Garth Mullins
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Crackdown

Surviving and Resisting the War on Drugs

$24.95

Available for pre-order
April 15, 2025

Length TBA
Language English
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Part memoir, part manifesto, Crackdown is a story of the drug war, told from the frontlines.

Garth Mullins was born into a world too bright for him to fully see, and too unforgiving to fully accept him. Bullied by both kids and adults, who mocked his albinism and trivialized his blindness, Garth turned to activism and punk rock, seeking escape, and discovered a scene that embraced him for who he was. And yet he still couldn't quell a haunting pain that had overwhelmed him since he was a child, a deep need to "blank it all out." Until he tried heroin.

Garth's experience as a heroin userโ€”including dopesickness, incarceration and overdoseโ€”is an all-too-common story for those struggling with drug addiction. And for Garth, it was this revelation that propelled him to the forefront of drug user activism. He was witnessing firsthand the failure of abstinence-based recovery programs; the ceaseless deaths of friends and community members from unregulated, toxic drug supply and a lack of safer alternatives; the over-representation of drug users, particularly Indigenous and Black users, in jails and prisons. And he saw that far from the decades-long war on drugs being a success, it had been a deadly failure.

Crackdown is an intimate portrait of Garth's relationship with opioids, and a searing indictment of a broken system that is failing drug users and non-users alike. With street drugs getting more toxic by the day, drug users and their families, friends and communities are left to pay the price. Crackdown asks us to radically reimagine our approach to drug use, and to envisage a system that helps rather than punishes.

GARTH MULLINS is a harm-reduction activist, award-winning journalist, writer, broadcaster and musician. He is an organizer with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, and executive producer and host of the award-winning podcast Crackdown. He lives in Vancouver.

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The Credit Bundle Sale is here!

Celebrate local bookstores with 10% off all credit bundles, perfect for holiday gifting or for yourself. Donโ€™t miss outโ€”sale ends December 12th!

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Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks!

Nowโ€™s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, weโ€™ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

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Save 10% on credit bundles for a limited time! Shop now