Crackdown: Surviving and Resisting the War on Drugs

by Garth Mullins

*NATIONAL BESTSELLER*

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 user—including dopesickness, incarceration and overdose—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 harms.

Genres: Drugs, Audiobook, Memoir, Nonfiction, Politics, Biography Memoir

Audible Audio

Published April 15, 2025

Reviews

[theliterateleprechaun]

Addiction was a way Garth Mullins adapted to his environment. His feeling of disconnection drove his addiction. This book had me wondering what would happen if society pivoted from judgement and stopped pumping money at a model that is broken and asked ourselves why we’ve changed so much as a society that we can’t welcome and include and connect with each other.

I still have a lot to learn about a part of our world I was sheltered from, but I can start by reaching out and offering support, kindness and love. I can work with others to build the power of community and maybe in some small way I can encourage others to help change the tide.

Garth asks readers to imagine a system that helps rather than harms. It starts with one person. It’s never too late.

This was a tough read. How do you rate a memoir?!

I was gifted this copy by the publisher through NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

[Riley (runtobooks)]

it's always a really cool day when someone in your family writes a book. it's even better when that book is saying something important.

i was incredibly lucky to be sent an early copy of 'crackdown: surviving and resisting the war on drugs' by @garthmullins, who happens to be my mum's cousin. growing up, i didn't have a close relationship with garth (he lived in vancouver, i lived in victoria), but as our families reunited for important moments (family reunions! milestone anniversaries! weddings!), i was always enthralled by the work he was doing. when i think of an activist, he's who comes to mind.

this book is special. i can't really give an unbiased review, but know that i think everyone should read it. growing up on the west coast, the news was constantly reporting on the war on drugs, and now living in toronto in 2025, i've seen how the war has changed, but so much work still needs to be done. garth has been fighting the fight almost his entire life, and so much change in BC and in canada has been a result of the work he's done with others in the community. this book is a tough read at times (it's hard reading about the struggles of someone you know personally), but alongside @crackdownpod, it's a key part of this conversation.

garth, thanks for sharing your story. i know this is one the world needs to hear right now.

[Misty Schofield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crackdown by Garth Mullins is a book that punches you in the gut and leaves you gasping, not from sensationalism, but from its staggering honesty. Garth Mullins brings readers to the heart of the war on drugs, not from the safety of a policy desk or political podium, but from the street-level trenches where people live, suffer, and too often die.

Mullins, an award-winning journalist, activist, and former heroin user, doesn’t just tell his story, he tells our story. The one so many choose not to see. His experiences are marked by the pain of alienation, the struggle to survive in a world that would rather punish than support, and the unbearable grief of watching friends and community members die from a poisoned, unregulated drug supply.

One of the most striking things about Crackdown is its humanity. This is not a book about “addicts” a term Mullins never uses to dehumanize. It’s about people. People who are loved. People who fight. People who deserve to live. Mullins shows how the system treats drug use as a moral failing, while sidestepping the structural violence that makes it deadly. He dismantles tired narratives about recovery and responsibility with the hard-earned wisdom of someone who has lived through every broken promise of the drug war.

A line that lingers long after reading is: “Having no sanctioned supervised injection sites meant the city was one massive unsupervised injection site.” The image is harrowing, and real. It captures the absurd cruelty of a society that refuses to offer safe places to use, but still expects users to survive. Another quote, resonates with painful truth: “For some, it (sobriety) might never happen. That shouldn’t be a death sentence.” And yet, today, it often is.

What makes Crackdown so powerful isn’t just the clarity of its critique, but the courage of its vulnerability. Mullins doesn’t hold back on the messiness of his own journey, from punk shows and protest lines to jail cells and detox. He doesn’t claim easy answers. He simply insists that people who use drugs deserve to live. To be heard. To be loved.

This book isn’t comfortable, and it shouldn’t be. It’s a call to arms. It demands we reimagine a system that doesn’t criminalize pain or turn healing into a privilege. Crackdown is a brave, vital book. It is blisteringly raw, beautifully written, and urgently necessary.

If you care about justice, real, lived justice, you need to read this book.

[Gudrun · Rating 5 out of 5]

everybody in Vancouver needs to get a libby account and listen to this right now

[Alanna Schwartz · Rating 5 out of 5]

BRB sending this to my MP, MPP, family Dr., family, and self. So many helpful reminders of the lived reality of folks as we face policies that put people who use drugs at such a high risk.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you, Garth, for sharing so much of your own personal story. I admire your strength in getting so vulnerable. And it also makes me sad that we live in a world where we ask for this kind of bloodletting to prove that people who use drugs are PEOPLE who deserve to live.

This book, and its namesake podcast, advance fact-based, science-supported, compassionate discourse about substance use and harm reduction. I am so angry at politicians of all stripes using fear to play politics and entrench policies that are literally killing people. 5-7 people a day in BC alone. Harm reduction is health care. Safe, regulated and prescribed supply saves lives. Our government is going in the wrong direction by giving up on decriminalization, bringing in involuntary treatment, and making the lives of the few who managed to get prescribed alternatives impossible by forcing them to consume in front of a pharmacist.

If you’re a friend of David Eby’s or any politician, please ask them to read this book or listen to the podcast. None of their policies are solutions - they’re making everything worse. They either know this and don’t care because they’re conceding to Conservative fear mongering so they don’t have to fight emotions with facts, or they don’t know and need the education.

[Care · Rating 5 out of 5]

content warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual violence, Classism, Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Body shaming, Death, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Grief, Alcohol

Minor: Homophobia, Transphobia

[Stephanie Arlt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Informative and poetic. Thank you, Garth.

[Doug · Rating 5 out of 5]

Invaluable and deeply human perspective on the drug war. I implore as many folks as possible to read this book.

[shadow reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

A 4.5 rounded up to 5.

I picked this up and read the first chapter and then devoured it over the course of a few days. In many ways it is a tough read, but the author skillfully blends memoir with policy analysis to sweep readers into what it is like to experience heroin addiction and the staggering losses that come with it.

This book makes the case for legalizing the drug supply, bringing readers into a community of people who are treated as disposable by politicians who lack the courage to make unpopular decisions that could save thousands of lives.

I’ll be thinking of this book for a long time.

[Sam Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Crackdown podcast that this book is named for helped me to understand the heartbreaking facts of addiction, the overdose crisis, and the lives of users on a gut, personal level. This beautifully written memoir of addiction and political struggle is essential reading for anyone who thinks that diverting money from safe consumption sites to so called "recovery" programs is anything other than cynical posturing from politicians who are willing to ignore and even exacerbate the suffering and death that was caused by their anti drug policies in the first place.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

One interesting aspect of this book is that it is not really a story of a guy getting clean and then trying to get others clean. Its more like a guy who is sort of clean (a methadone user) after years of heavy drug use, who is friends and colleagues with many active drug users and others also on methadone and who strongly advocates for policies like safe supply and safe usage sites. I found the information about methadone to be very intriguing. I cant safe Im convinced about safe supply still but he has softened some of my complete resistance to it. I also really like how he humanized his fellow drug users without making them merely victims or over simplifying them. I didnt and still dont completely agree with him but it gave me a lot to think about and helped me find new ways to think about people who use drugs. That being said I would still say that the current drugs like fentynal are just too insanely addictive to be safe to use ever and its really just best to stay as far as possible away from them. But i dont know what you can do once people are addicted to them. But reading books like this has also helped me realize how drugs can be used by people as a way to feel normal, or to achieve some level of normality or achieve some sort of goal, and thats something i always struggled to understand.

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars.
This book is an autobiography from Garth Mullin. He explains how he got involved with drugs, what he did to sustain himself with drugs and his daily fight in staying of the hard drugs. He is on the methadone program.
It is a hard book to read on many levels. If, like me, you are a bit of a tea totaler on the drug front, you have real hardship understanding why people would do drugs in the first place. With so much data on the ravages of using illicit drugs these days you have to be desperate to turn to drugs. But there are plenty of desperate people out there, with real hardship throughout their lives, from early childhood to their deaths. And yes drugs can bring relief, even if it is for a short while.

Garth Mullins has Albanism and had a pretty awful experience as a child. Nannies are not always angels. Why he didn’t talk to his parents? Only he knows. But it is the beginning of his decent into hell.

This book is uncomfortable to read. It is not only about Garth’s life but also the lives of his friends, his activism, his journalism, his continuous work to convince the government to sell clean drugs to drug users. It seems such an obvious thing to do but it hasn’t happened yet and with the recent political shifts in Canada, with the rise of right wing groups it is unlikely to happen any time soon.
Garth Mullins is also the host of Crackdown the podcast.

Read the book. Listen to the podcast. Talk amongst your friends. Share the book. Drug addicts are people too and they need our help.

[kaelan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I should say that this book would probably work better as a podcast (fortunately, one that already exists), as the writing quality—which I can only describe as "YA lit meets broadcast journalism script"—doesn't quite cut it over the course of nearly 300 pages. But this is still critical stuff. Drug use remains dangerously misunderstood in mainstream Canadian society, especially in a media-political landscape that favours easy scapegoating over medical evidence and lived experience. In June 2025, an average of 4.9 British Columbians died of overdose each day. Those are staggering numbers. If you believe the answer lies in even more policing and prohibition (as do most Canadian politicians), then you'll want to read this book.

[Erik Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I heard of Crackdown through the podcast of the same name (which is also worthy of 5/5 stars). Although lacking the punk rock riffs, the book has the same upfront, rebellious, “fuck the established system” vibes. It’s a sad, funny, and anger inducing read. Listening to Crackdown changed my entire ideology around drugs and my understanding around why people use them. I hope the this book takes another step further expanding the Crackdown audience.

Crackdown should be required reading for anyone who wants to better understand why the drug war is failing and will continue to fail unless seemingly radical [read logical] change is made. Our institutional leaders need a little more empathy and a lot more courage to try something different than what’s clearly not working. Maybe if they read this, some of Garth’s will wear off on their sorry asses.

[Jen G · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've listened to every episode of the Crackdown podcast, and through it, I have learned so much about the toxic drug crisis and the failure of BC's drug policy.

This books covers plenty of the same ground (this is not a complaint - the more the story gets told, the better) but also includes Garth Mullins' personal story, which I've always wondered about.

It's a book everyone should read. Honest, painful, so illuminating, so frustrating. The provincial government fails yet again to effect meaningful change, in the same way it does with logging, pipelines, fish farms, and so many other files. Meaningless meetings and task forces and reports, clear science showing what needs to happen to fix problems, promises to enact recommendations to effect positive change, and ... no useful action. Rinse and repeat.

My heart goes out to Garth and everyone who struggles with drugs.

[Julie Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to LibroFM for the advanced listening copy.

This is a fascinating insight into the drug culture and a call to arms to review our existing anti-drug policies which are ineffective and put massive pressure on our legal systems.

Mullins is brutally honest about his own life as a heroin user and argues the case that drug addiction is a medical condition rather than a crime and should be treated as such. He's been an activist in many campaigns to bring clean drug supplies to Canada to reduce the accidental overdose deaths that hit the country so hard.

It has given me a much better understanding of drug use, addiction and why methadone is such a heroine (pun intended) in helping people come off their narcotic drugs.

[Maggie Power · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crackdown has been my favourite podcast since I listened to the very first episode, so when I saw Garth had published a book, I knew I had to read it. I listened to the audiobook which is narrated by the author. This is a perfect blend of Garth’s personal story with substance use and trauma and the history of the drug war and drug user movement in Vancouver. It was like listening to an extra long version of the podcast, which I’ll take any day. Highly recommend for anyone interested in community led approaches to drug policy.

[Lyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raw, gritty and informative. Garth Mullins' prose seems effortless, but just like with his Crackdown podcast (please check it out), you are expertly guided through this world of real people, and the seemingly insurmountable mountains to be climbed, in large measure due to the ignorance and downright cruelty of those in power along with the bureaucratic infrastructures, upon whose scaffolding these barbarous conditions are perpetuated. As the title suggests, the emphasis is on organizing and fighting for changes.

[Sam Wollenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Garth contributes an extremely unique and informed perspective on substance use and the subsequent war on drugs policies in Canada for the past 100 years. The books broader focus on progressive movement building and descriptions of the leg work required to have any public health policies be actually informed by substance users themselves are great lessons for anyone advocating for evidence-based but socially stigmatized issues.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-argued, fast-moving story of drug use, recovery, and advocacy from someone who refuses the shame of stigma. Very well written (or, at very least, edited) for someone who’s not a professional, minus the occasional soft patch or cliché. A lot fewer of those than you’d expect from someone without a long career in journalism or letters, though. This is a well-told life story and an important read.

[Enid Wray · Rating 3 out of 5]

An insightful read but this title never finds it’s footing - never knowing how to find the balance between being “(p)art memoir, part manifesto.”

At just a little over 200 pages all in it does a dis-service to its mission as a memoir what with it being so “condensed.”

I felt like there was as much missing from this as there was included.

The book sort of found itself in the second half, when it becomes more “manifesto” than memoir.

[H Wesselius · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written mix of personal and policy in relation to drug use and prohibition. Sparsely written and well paced which matches the topic, it's an easy but tough read. It helps that I agree with his criticisms of our current policies but it's well worth a read simply to the point of view an addict expresses.

[Erin]

I definitely recommend the podcast! You get an introduction to the author, Crackdown podcast, overdose crisis and the movement for safe drug supply. A Canadian POV of the drug user movement and overdose crisis.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

a really incredible firsthand account of DULF, VANDU, methadone access, and the infuriating political context that necessitated vancouver's drug liberation movement. vancouver punk scene mentioned!

i sobbed at the end, hit too close to home.

[Michelle Salmon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you for sharing your incredibly moving and important story. You had me in tears at several points. I learned a lot from this, and I'm really grateful for the work you and your community do.

[Caelie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should be required reading for anyone trying to understand the drug crisis and drug users. An excellent read that I will be recommending to others

[Christy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve always loved Garth’s way of telling a story on the Crackdown podcast, and he uses the same style in this book. A great overview of the movement. I loved this book!

[Mike Broderick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have lots I could say, but won’t.
I will say this book shows that we have a lot of work to do regarding drugs in Canada. But, a better book is For The Love of a Son.

[Everan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An important book for Canadians to read. The 'memoir' part of this book is compelling, yet the 'manifesto' lacks depth and direction.