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Addict’s sister fears inevitable safe injection sites
Aug 21, 2017, 5:12 PM | Updated: 5:16 pm
Voters may not get a chance to vote on safe injection sites until February.
Despite gathering enough signatures, a lawsuit filed Monday seeks to invalidate Initiative 27, arguing that public health policy is outside the scope of the initiative process.
RELATED: Lawsuit filed to block vote on safe-injection sites
Jennifer Aspelund, whose brother died from a heroin overdose, attended Monday’s county council meeting where members voted down adding Initiative 27 from the November ballot. She said the vote happened so fast before members moved on to the next issue.
“So I stood up and I questioned Mr. (Joe) McDermott and he told me to sit down and that I was out of line and I was out of order,” Aspelund told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Show. “I was told that this was all going to move to February and we’ll have plenty of time for dialogue … the people spoke already.”
“To say that safe injection sites are going to be the cure to all of this is going to prolong suffering,” Aspelund said. “Human suffering is going to continue if these sites go in.”
Dori believes the county will open the clinics, the voters will reject safe injection sites, and then be subject to “sob stories” about how devastating it will be to take them away.
“You’re right,” Aspelund said. “Unless an injection is filed to stop them from going in — which I fully anticipate that will be happening — because you know they already have plans to push this through at warp speed.”
RELATED: Bothell councilmember Joshua Freed on why he supports I-27
Aspelund said she doesn’t understand the motives of local politicians. If they’re hoping to get help on the heroin crisis from the Feds, she believes they’re barking up the wrong tree.
“With the administration that’s in effect now, money isn’t coming in for drug and heroin users to have a safe haven to shoot up or do their drug of choice,” she said.
Aspelund predicts councilmember Jeanne Kohl-Welles will add a counter initiative on the ballot that will confuse voters.
