The tone of Searching For Drug Peace was set from the opening minutes, when a mule carrying loads of vacuum-packed mushrooms declared himself to be on the “Amazon model”.
Coca Leaf Café in Vancouver illegally sells psychedelics in a store-front licensed for something else. Its struggle is ostensibly about staying in business while fighting the city police and legislature regarding its possession of illicit substances and license suspension, respectively. In addition to psychedelic sales, proprietor Dana Larsen’s other operation provides drug testing – using IR spectroscopy to identify adulterants such as fentanyl to reduce possible harm to users. But the business narrative quickly takes second place to a David vs. Goliath dimension: the end of the “war on drugs” and “prohibition”.
Progressively, and perhaps because they have been pushing drugs for so long, a life-style has morphed into a life-long mission and a savior fantasy. The café owners, workers, and their advocates have convinced themselves that their products are uniquely a “safe solution”. Here, I have to digress – the human body didn’t evolve to survive sea krait venom, stonefish toxins, conch secretions, or fungal extracts – the fundamental reason why they work is also why there are no safe solutions. The key modifier is addiction. If water is addictive, you would find people drinking air-conditioner condensates to drown themselves. That excess is by definition, and cannot be rescued by a business focused on dosage and purity.
But they will continue to act as angels in the community. This is attested in the film by an anecdote from a user who stressed that he “needed the awareness to stop what I’m doing to myself” – meaning mushrooms gave him a state of mind outside of an addled self to become clean again. But most of the film’s other elements are superficial appendices: inputs from a paramedic, a drug policy analyst, etc. are haphazardly stitched together. They add up to more buzzing-flies than a contrasting voice against the central promotion for “drug freedom.”
Behind that banner, however, most actions taken by Coca Leaf Café are plainly business driven – including no less than staking out a licensing grey zone. They are happy to induct young people into the culture to boost the customer base. If/once they hitch onto the addiction train (presumably elsewhere out of purview of Coca Leaf Cafe, because “woot drug freedom”), all the more convenient as a future compassionate dependent. Sending mushrooms to British Columbian MLAs, speaking at marijuana events, giving out freebies at park gatherings, all are advertisements. This is a documentary about a group of people who profiteers under the guise of activism calling for rights, safety, and compassion. The title of the documentary should be “All I want to do, is sell some (maybe safe) drugs”.
But it is nonetheless sombre and valuable, because it fleshes out an undercurrent. The end credit mentioned that “(Larsen) continues to face police raids and political oppositions”. That would be heroic, but it would not track with the expansion to “run 3 psychedelic dispensaries and two drug test centers” mentioned right after. Tacitly, they have been given permission, and even Larsen admits that they would go under if the police raids are more frequent. The political/legal displays against license revocation seems a bet for future electoral gains, as well as a delay tactics to avoid dressing a long-necrotizing wound. I wonder how the drug users feel when their fragmented community is again paying Canadians for misery in return. It is also indeed depressing as the licensure precedence will surely be copied elsewhere.
But we should realize that this is the price we (implicitly) accepted a social contract that marginalizes some people to the edge of “polite” society: unsavory intermediaries will spring up to demarcate and interface. Larsen found mushrooms, just like Bezos found cheap plastic wine stoppers. Pamela McColl, who acts as the de facto on-screen conscience of the film, said it best: “Look at what you are doing to your fellow human beings!”
She’s not just speaking to Coca Leaf Cafe, or to the councilors who gave them literal and figurative licenses for selling more harm, but to us all. The less we pretend to care, the sooner the sick dividends will pour onto our own doorsteps. I shudder to think that the Coca Leaves of the world are the angels-in-waiting.
What if we can smoke healthy vegetables like potatoes and carrots instead … Now, that’s a “new” thought.
