EXCLUSIVE: In 2024, almost 80,000 people died of drug overdoses in the U.S., according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. North of the border, the situation is just as alarming.

In Canada in the past decade, more than 50,000 people have died of overdoses – a striking number given the much smaller size of its population compared to the U.S. The figures underscore the remarkable failure of the War on Drugs waged in both countries.

The new documentary Searching for Drug Peace, which is about to hold its world premiere at Hot Docs in Toronto, explores this purported war through a man with a unique approach to the O.D.  crisis — Dana Larsen, “a daring drug reform activist who has dedicated his entire life to bringing an end to the War on Drugs.”

Alisher Balfanbayev directed and produced the film. We have your first look at the documentary in the teaser-trailer above.

“Dana lives and works in Vancouver, the epicenter of the overdose crisis in Canada and one of the worst-impacted cities in North America,” notes a synopsis. “Drawing on decades of civil disobedience in the cannabis legalization movement, Dana now directs his efforts toward harm reduction and drug reform in new frontiers. His non-profit center, Get Your Drugs Tested, offers free drug checking and fentanyl screening to thousands, helping users avoid overdoses and death from the toxic drug supply. To fund the service, Dana operates the Coca Leaf Café and Medicinal Mushroom Dispensary—the world’s first storefront of its kind, providing safe recreational and medicinal access to psychedelics and other banned substances, in contravention of the law.”

The synopsis continues, “As Dana’s operation grows and gains attention, politicians, police, and regulators begin to push back. He is stripped of his business license, faces police raids and arrests, and is forced to shut down the testing centre. As he loses a close friend and ally to an overdose, and the clouds seem darker than ever before, Dana’s fight culminates in a high-stakes legal showdown that will determine the future of his movement—and the broader struggle for compassion and justice in drug policy.”

Searching for Drug Peace premieres at Hot Docs on Tuesday, April 28, with an additional screening set for Wednesday, April 29. Along with Balfanbayev, the film is produced by Max Walter Joelson. Balfanbayev, Joelson, and Liam Sherriff wrote the film. Balfanbayev served as cinematographer; Sheriff edited the documentary. The composer is Toby Sherriff.

In a director’s statement, Balfanbayev writes, “The subject of the War on Drugs and the overdose crisis has been at the forefront of my mind for as long as I can remember, shaped by personal experiences and by watching people in my community lose their lives to something that felt entirely avoidable. That feeling became especially real during my time in university, when people I knew were dying after unknowingly taking contaminated drugs.

“I wasn’t trying to find something to fit the mold of a film that I felt needed to be made, but rather allowing something that already existed within me to become a film. These questions, this confusion and discontent, had been building for years, and filmmaking became the outlet through which I could engage with them in a meaningful way once I came across the story that would become Searching for Drug Peace.”

In the Hot Docs program, Aisha Jamal writes the documentary “challenges your beliefs and morals, asking what actionable solutions can be implemented to stem the tide of the thousands dying on Canada’s streets due to an unsafe drug supply.”

Watch the tease-trailer for Searching for Drug Peace above.