King County voters could see two measures about safe consumption sites on their ballots in February.
Several Democratic members of the King County Council are proposing a second ballot measure related to safe consumption sites in an effort to offset Initiative 27. That initiative would ban safe consumption sites across King County, including in Seattle. The measure has already gathered enough signatures to appear on the ballot but currently faces a legal challenge.
The second measure proposed here would ask if the county should proceed with opening two safe consumption sites. The sites would be located in areas with a “measurable concentration of substance use and related overdoses” and operate on a three-year trial basis. The sites would then be assessed by the county public health department. If I-27 survives the legal challenge, both it and the pro-safe consumption sites ballot question would appear on the February 6 ballot.
Last year, 332 people died of drug-related deaths in King County, two-thirds of them related to opioids. County council member Jeanne Kohl-Welles, one of the cosponsors of the second ballot measure, says her 26-year-old nephew died last year of an overdose in Minneapolis.
“He was in and out of treatment and died alone in a room. There was no one there to help him,” Kohl-Welles said in an interview. “I don’t want to see that for other families.” Kohl-Welles said a second ballot measure will give voters “an alternative [to I-27] that proposes commonsensical options.”
Safe consumption sites would offer people who use illegal drugs like heroin a place to inject or smoke while monitored by medical staff who could help prevent fatal overdoses and connect people to treatment and other services. Dozens of similar sites exist in Europe, where they have been shown to reduce risky behavior like needle sharing and reduce drug-related deaths. At a safe injection site in Vancouver, British Columbia, there have been 6,440 overdose interventions without any deaths, according to the site. (While Vancouver’s site is injection-only, “safe consumption” is an intentionally broader term, meaning people could also smoke drugs at the site.)
A county task force has recommended opening two safe consumption sites, one in Seattle, as part of a long list of strategies to address the opioid crisis. But multiple suburbs have since banned the sites.
Council Member Rod Dembowski, another cosponsor of the second ballot measure, said I-27 backers are fear-mongering about what safe consumption sites would mean. “They want to paint a parade of horribles,” he said.
“We’re losing somebody every 36 hours,” Dembowski said of drug-related deaths. “What these [sites] are about at the end of day is saving lives.”
The full county council will vote Monday on whether to send the second measure to the ballot.
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