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But Overdose Prevention Society founder Sarah Blyth said Monday there was no “bust” or “raid.” Officers visited the booth over the weekend and asked questions, but didn’t arrest anyone or seize anything.

On Monday, representatives of B.C. Emergency Health Services visited High Hopes to show their support, and a Vancouver Police spokesman was eager to dispel any rumours of a “bust,” with both emphasizing their support for the work of Blyth and her peers.

Such a display of support from government employees for the Overdose Prevention Society — effectively a rogue project operating outside the legal health-care system — illustrates the all-hands-on-deck mentality of first responders, as traditional approaches prove unable to stop a public health crisis.

Retail marijuana sales remain illegal under Canadian law, whether at High Hopes or any other Vancouver dispensary, even those with city-issued business licences. But in the midst of an overdose epidemic on track to kill 400 people this year in Vancouver alone, first responders are willing to overlook Blyth’s lack of licences if she and her team can help slow the mounting death toll.

Across B.C., 780 people died from suspected illicit drug overdoses in the first half of this year, the B.C. Coroners Service reported.

Blyth believed the police visited Sunday simply to learn more about what was going on there, so to that end, she invited journalists down Monday, she said, to “make sure that everybody’s aware of what we’re doing and why.”