Harger: Seattle is ending arrests for public drug use as Katie Wilson takes over

Get arrested for open drug use in Seattle now, and here’s what happens: you get referred to a diversion program. That’s it.

That’s the new directive, first reported by the activist group We Heart Seattle, which shared an internal SPD email over the weekend. I reached out to SPD and the mayor’s office. Neither got back to us before we published. They’ve since responded with carefully worded statements insisting nothing has changed. But the chief’s own words tell a different story: “Effective immediately, all charges related to drug possession and/or drug use will be diverted from prosecution to the LEAD program.” Arrests can still happen. Prosecution won’t. Mike Solan, head of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, has a harsh term for this approach: suicidal empathy.

We’ve tried this before.

From 2021 to 2023, after the State v. Blake decision struck down drug possession laws, Seattle effectively stopped arresting people for using in public. The results were visible everywhere. Open-air markets flourished. Overdose deaths climbed. Third and Pine became a national symbol of urban decay. In 2023, Mayor Bruce Harrell and the city council reversed course, restoring enforcement tools while keeping diversion options in place.

Now we’re reversing the reversal.

I believe in diversion. I believe in drug courts. People struggling with addiction deserve a path forward, not just a cell. But here’s what gets lost in this debate: diversion only works when there’s a consequence for refusing it. The carrot needs the stick. Take away the threat of arrest, and what’s the incentive to accept help?

Andrea Suarez has spent five years on Seattle’s streets working with people with addiction. This is what she shared with me last night: “Some of the most profound statements have come directly from drug addicts themselves, and here are a few of them: ‘I can’t get arrested for my open warrants, Andrea.’ ‘Seattle wants me to be a junkie, Andrea.’ ‘It’s too hard to get clean in the city of Seattle. I’d go to treatment, but then it’s just too easy to come out and score dope, only to relapse — which would be worse than going in in the first place.'”

The people we’re trying to help know the system has given up on them.

“Any drug addict I’ve ever worked with, and I’ve been doing this for five years, will tell me it was having to sweat it out in King County Jail,” Suarez said.” It was getting sick and tired of being sick and tired. Going through withdrawals. Not being able to score dope because we had a culture where it was very hard to get dope and to steal without getting arrested for those crimes.

“Now we have an environment where we’re trapping people in the cycle of addiction, keeping them sick, keeping them addicted, and harming our communities,” she continued. “Because what do drug addicts have to do all day long? They have to hustle. That means they steal and strip wire. They trade their bodies. They porch-prowl. They smash and grab. They’re trading their SNAP cards up on Twelfth and Jackson. They’re boosting and fencing on Third and Pine.”

“This is enablement of the worst kind, ” Suarez told me. “And people will die at a faster rate by allowing them to openly use illicit and lethal narcotics on our sidewalks, in our parks, under our bridges. It’s horrific what’s happening, and the direction that this city is going over the next five years causes me great concern.”

Jail isn’t just punishment. For some people, it’s the only intervention that breaks the cycle. It’s where the fog clears long enough to make a different choice. It’s a tool. And we just took it off the table.

I think about Ginny Burton. She runs recovery programs inside Washington prisons now. She’s got a book on drug policy coming out later this year. Thirteen years clean. A Truman Scholar. A mother of three. But before all that, she was someone you would have stepped over at Third and Pine.

When she heard about this policy, she told me her head dropped into her hands. She texted me: “Here’s what I know that many policymakers don’t: when I was out there, I was counting on someone to come get me. I needed someone to intervene, because I couldn’t save myself. The police coming for me wasn’t the end of my story. It was the beginning of my freedom. When we eliminate police from this equation, we eliminate the one interruption that might save someone’s life. We call it compassion, but it’s abandonment. We leave human beings to deteriorate in drug-infested environments while someone gets wealthy off the chaos. Who is actually being helped when a person is left to die in plain sight? I know I wasn’t helped when I was left alone out there. I was helped when someone finally came.”

Mayor Katie Wilson and City Attorney Erika Evans promised a different approach. They’re delivering it. I hope it works. I hope I’m wrong about all of this.

Seattle voted for this direction.

Now we find out, again, what compassion without accountability looks like.

Editor’s note: The mayor’s office says “there has been no policy change.” SPD says “nothing has changed.” We updated our opening line to be more precise: officers can still arrest, but the city attorney will divert all charges to the LEAD program instead of prosecuting. The chief’s email announcing this begins with the words “effective immediately.” Make of that what you will.

Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here. 

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