Safe injection site testimony shows clear divide

Depending on who you heard from during a hearing on injection sites on Monday, the proposed safe places for heroin users would be a step toward ending an epidemic or the beginning of a much bigger problem.

Related: Raising the smoking age in Washington would be a ‘road block’

State Senator Mark Miloscia, who is sponsoring a bill to ban safe consumption sites statewide, said dedicated places to use drugs would only make things worse for Washington.

“It won’t end in King County,” he said. “This will spread across the entire state. We will be attracting drug users — pushers — from all across the country…”

Miloscia’s bill got its first public hearing in Olympia on Monday. There was a clear divide between those who support the bill and those who would rather people have a place to go to shoot up.

Dan Otter, a recovering addict, and a registered nurse has been researching his thesis by touring safe injection sites in Europe.

“I saw the relationships that the staff was able to create with their clients,” he explained. “These relationships took years to build. And it was these relationships that allow chronic drug users to accept help and begin the long process of behavior change.”

Patricia Sully with the Public Defenders Association spoke in their defense as well.

“It makes very little sense to give someone a clean needle and send them out to a dirty alley to use that needle,” she said. “It makes sense to keep people in, not keep people out.”

King County is moving ahead with two pilot safe consumption sites, in spite of threats of the statewide ban through Miloscia’s bill. At least one of those will be in Seattle. The sites are expected to open within a year.

Advocates say such sites save lives and can connect users with health services, which is crucial as addiction levels have skyrocketed. A 40-member task force that convened last year recommended opening one safe-injection site in Seattle and one in another part of King County.

Since 2014, the Seattle Fire Department has responded to more than 2,600 overdoses. The majority of drug overdoses are heroin and about three-quarters of all fatal overdoses in King County involve an opiate, KIRO 7 reports.

But that doesn’t mean all law enforcement supports the program. Ed Troyer with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office, for example, recently told KIRO Radio to keep the safe sites in King County. Like Miloscia, he argued that they would risk attracting more addicts to the area.

“Isn’t it attracting people from all over the country? And what about your homeless population?” Troyer said. “I know from some of the cops I’ve talked to up there, most the homeless people they encounter on the streets aren’t from that area, but you’ve set it up for them pretty good.”

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