For Seattle mayoral candidate Jason Roberts, it’s personal

Mayoral candidate Jason Roberts has history in Seattle. He was raised in the city, watched it grow, and has spent his working life in clubs and bars.

As Seattle began losing people to the rising heroin epidemic, he felt the loss personally.

“I lost my little brother last April to a heroin overdose,” Roberts told The Todd Herman Show. “I lost my mother to issues related to opioid overdose in February.”

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Roberts and Herman are political opposites. Roberts is a Democrat who says he’s socially Liberal, yet is fiscally conservative. That’s what he aims to bring to city hall as Seattle’s mayor. Still, the city faces issues beyond the budget — issues like the opioid crisis that is overlapping with homelessness and the lives of Seattle neighbors. With his personal experience, Roberts hopes to tackle this issue as well.

His approach is a bit different than current Seattle leaders.

“I will not disparage those who make the efforts for the safe injection sites because they are trying to do something,” Roberts said. “And they are championing something they think is going to work. I happen to disagree, but nothing else is being done.”

“What I suggest is that we start funding low-barrier detox centers and back that up with medical support to get suboxton and drugs like Vivitrol along with counseling,” he said. “There are multitudes of reasons why people begin using heroin or opioids in general. It’s not just people on the street. It’s people I employ in my private life. I have run into three or four employees in this last year that have suffered opioid addictions and had to go to Eastern Washington to get clean. Here in Seattle, it’s much more cost-effective to remain addicted and sustain a habit than it is to get clean. There are no detox centers that are low-barrier for one, and cost effective for another.”

Another angle: crime.

“Addiction is not a crime … right now it’s about $46,000 to $50,000 a year, roughly, to keep somebody incarcerated,” Roberts said. “I would like to see the laws enforced, but give them an option – they can either go through rehab treatment or they can go to jail.”