The first (and last) time I watched someone shotgun a can of something alcoholic, it was in a plaza outside a work Christmas party. 

The fresh-faced 19-year-old working in the store said they’d never done it before and wanted to learn—in case it came up at university. The 20-something employee from Alberta, barely any older but an expert in questionable drinking practices, walked them through it.

I assumed it would be another 28 years before I encountered one of the weirdest ways to drink a tinnie again, but instead a viral video of Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim shotgunning a beer on-stage at Khatsahlano Street Party with two other men came across my feed this weekend. Clad in aviator shades, a LOVE UNITES Adidas jersey, and chino shorts, the 52-year-old bagel mogul did a great imitation of a man half his age. The kicker: a voice on the loudspeaker caps it off with, “Who says Vancouver is no fun?”

While the whole thing somewhat gives me flashbacks of conservative politicians from my youth being praised as “a man [you] could have a pint with” (as if drinking with Nigel Farage isn’t some kind of torture in the eighth circle of hell), Mayor Sim isn’t that. He is, after all, more of “a man you could shotgun a beer with.”

It’s hard to imagine having such a warm reception if Sim had got up on stage and done a bump of cocaine—or dropped acid—or consumed any of the drugs currently banned under Canada’s Controlled Drugs and Substances act. And yet, alcohol is also an addictive substance. 

As a society, we’ve decided that alcohol is “fun”; that we can celebrate its reckless consumption by middle-aged businessmen; that we can purchase it safely from regulated stores all over the city, and consume it in bars and parks and on Granville Island without pushback. And there’s a reason: it is, after all, very fun to get buzzed on a couple of brewskis after a long day at work… or during a long day at work, if you’re the kind of employee who can put boozy lunches on the company Mastercard. I frequently knock back one too many Muddlers on Kits Beach, watching the sunset and side-eyeing the beach cops. Alcohol isn’t bad. But it isn’t exactly risk-free.

Alcohol is one of two substances that can kill you during detox. One in five Canadians meet the criteria for “alcohol abuse or dependence” over their lifetime. And it’s also a substance that, while regulated, can fuck you up: 3,875 Canadians died from alcohol-induced causes in 2021, compared to 6,310 from accidental poisoning from illicit drugs. 

We’ve normalized booze, despite the fact it kills 10 people a day. Sure, the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addition (CCSA) released guidelines earlier this year stating no amount of alcohol is safe and that people should not have more than two drinks a week… and we all collectively shrugged, because who wants their two brunchtime mimosas to be an entire week’s alcohol quota? We’re consenting adults, and it is within our rights to get as monumentally sauced on silly juice as we want. We can hold two truths in our heads at once: that alcohol is fun, and that too much can be unhealthy. 

Canadian provinces had short periods of banning alcohol with varying levels of success, until governments realized people were gonna get shitfaced regardless—and illegally-procured alcohol was way more likely to make people sick. 

The booze ban was lifted—but it remains in place for many other kinds of inebriants. With nowhere safe to buy drugs, the illicit market is full of toxic chemicals made from random assortments of natural and synthetic substances. And rather than extending this party-hearty, laissez-faire drinking culture to the sharpest edge of intoxicant consumption, Mayor Sim has cracked down on the people who need the most help. 

Since taking office last November, Sim’s ABC-led council has largely worked to remove the appearance of the toxic drug crisis while doing little to actually fix it. The City has not committed to expanding safe supply, or to creating more permanent safe consumption sites; in fact, ABC Coun. Peter Meizner has actively tried to relocate the Yaletown OPS. Jerry Martin, who opened a store selling tested illicit drugs, operated his shop for less than 24 hours before police shut it down. He later died from consuming drugs from the toxic street supply. DULF, which runs a compassion club, has kept its 40-odd members alive with its batch-tested pure drugs—but they can’t separate everyone from the tainted street supply. 

Yeah, that’s not nearly as much fun as drinking a beer in the sunshine in front of a crowd of good-natured Kitsilano revellers. Only a select few kinds of folks would insist that enjoying a beer or six makes you a bad person—but we’re quick to pass exactly that kind of judgement when it comes to harder drugs.

ABC’s aggressive dismantling of the Hastings street encampment also removed a public space for people to consume drugs in relative safety. As Hamish Ballantyne and Molly Beatrice explained for the Straight at the time, “There is less risk of death by overdose [for residents], because they are surrounded by caring people who know how to administer naloxone.” 

If Mayor Sim can drink a beer in public without getting hassled by the cops, why can’t we extend that same kind of courtesy to our neighbours consuming illegal drugs? There are already stores across Vancouver operating in a live-and-let-live way selling shrooms, LSD, and acid. Drug use is part of the human experience, from caffeine to wake us up to alcohol to drown our sorrows.

Mayor Sim shotgunning a beer is part of his brand. He’s a cool mayor. He’s curating good vibes and bringing back swagger. He wants people to think he’s copacetic, as he hangs out with other mayors on a yacht during a time of rampant unaffordability. 

The only difference between shotgunning a beer on stage and consuming benzos in an alley is prohibition. Celebrating one and decrying the other isn’t cool. It’s a bit cringe.