Hello and thank you for coming.
The drug abuse epidemic is a humanitarian crisis that deserves just as much urgency as we gave to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Instead, every day, people on our streets are dying of overdose and drug-related harm.
It's time to face the facts.
What we've been doing these past years isn't working.
Year over year, overdose deaths rose by 72%.
And no neighborhood has been untouched by the scourge of the drug abuse epidemic.
Recently I signed an opioid settlement against producers and sellers of opioids to help remedy some of the harm caused.
But in Seattle, right before our eyes, public drug use has sadly become normal.
Our buses are unhealthy to use, our transit centers feel unsafe to wait in, and people walking down the street feel afraid.
Children see it and look to adults for explanation, but usually they learn silence and ignoring.
Not because they don't care, but because everyday people need government leaders to help.
Open air drug markets now freely exist and overdose calls have skyrocketed.
Enough is enough.
We need to reclaim our public spaces, all of them.
We need to intervene in the lives of people who are suffering and to do that we must see them and say that what they're doing in public is not okay for them or for us collectively.
Together with Councilmember Nelson and Councilmember Peterson, we are proposing legislation this week to discourage public use.
by of drugs by making it a prosecutable crime.
This legislation is modeled after the recent Bellingham ordinance to reaffirm that public consumption of drugs is not acceptable.
We need this tool to keep public spaces safe and reestablish what is accepted behavior.
And frankly, we need investment from the state to open more beds and treatment facilities and invest in in custody treatment.
I turn it over now to Council Member Nelson and then Council Member Peterson will take questions at the end.
Thank you.
Hello everybody.
Seattle's hands-off approach to people using illegal drugs in public has resulted in rampant street crime and a death toll rivaling that of COVID-19 in Seattle.
Complacency is no longer an option.
Cities have laws and enforcement to dissuade activity that's harmful to ourselves and to others, just like speeding in school zones and unlawful possession of firearms.
And public use of deadly drugs should be no exception.
Thank you all for coming.
I'm Sarah Nelson, Citywide Councilmember and Chair of Economic Development.
I recently received an email about a small business closure in which the owner explains that they managed to survive the pandemic, but quote, the latest challenge with Seattle is the drugs and addicts severely impacting the day-to-day operations.
I'm removing individuals illegally using substances in our doorway on average two to four times a day.
And he goes on to describe an attack on an employee and ends by saying, it's just too much to handle.
It has crippled the business and more critically, it has crippled me.
Now this is happening to neighborhood businesses across our city.
Now back here at City Hall, we're focused a lot on economic revitalization of downtown.
And key to that is getting workers back to the office.
Employers are telling me they're having a hard time doing that.
Not because workers are afraid of catching COVID on the job, but they are afraid to ride public transit to work.
or walk to their office past people smoking fentanyl on the street.
Meanwhile, summer's around the corner and parents want to be able to take their kids to the park without people doing drugs right in front of them.
So I'm just trying to paint a picture of what my constituents are saying and seeing across the city.
That's what I'm doing here.
And they want to know what we're doing about it.
They're demanding more.
Last year, I proposed a budget item that would have expanded access to addiction treatment because addiction lies at the intersection of our public safety and our homelessness crises.
And I remain committed to that today.
But this is a drug crisis and people are dying and we have got to face the fact that law enforcement is a component of our response.
By making consumption of controlled substances a misdemeanor, this legislation gives our officers a tool to interrupt that behavior.
And it provides the city attorney with the ability to prosecute.
I'm proud to stand here and announce this bill today.
This is not controversial.
Regardless what the legislature ends up doing on possession, people are dying every day.
Let's not lose sight of that.
Let's not lose sight of that fact.
More simply, these drugs are illegal and we need a rule to prohibit their public use.
Period.
Good morning, I'm Alex Peterson, Seattle City Council member and chair of our Transportation Committee.
It's not okay for people to smoke fentanyl or to use other illegal drugs in our public spaces or in our public transit.
And the laws on the books need to reflect those basic health and safety standards.
So everyone knows the Wild West is no longer acceptable in Seattle.
Children walking to school, customers shopping at stores, workers coming downtown to their jobs, transit riders taking the bus and the light rail, tourists wondering whether they will bring their families back to Seattle.
None of them should think that City Hall is okay with people smoking fentanyl or meth on our public sidewalks, in our parks, at our public transit stations.
As Transportation Chair, I hear frequent concerns from transit riders about feeling unsafe when they encounter people using illegal drugs at our bus stops and in our light rail stations.
Everyone deserves to feel safe traveling through our city, especially on our public transit.
Our state government has left a gap in enforcement, so we need to fill that gap for health and safety.
We know it's a severe public health crisis, so we need to do everything we can to address it.
As reported earlier this month, illicit fentanyl kills at least two people every day in King County.
And the powerful opioid was responsible for over 700 fatal overdoses last year, roughly triple the death toll of traffic crashes and gun violence combined.
That was reported in the Seattle Times.
And when our fentanyl is combined with methamphetamine, the result is even more devastating for public health.
We all need to play a part in the solution.
Earlier this week, King County voters chose to build five new crisis care treatment centers.
King County continues to operate its program for mental illness and drug dependency, the MIDD program.
Our city government partners with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority to fund outreach workers, shelter and housing from various nonprofits.
We also need our state legislature to provide additional funds to treat substance use disorder.
And yes, our justice system also needs to play a productive part, and they need clear legal tools and direction to intervene when illegal drugs are used in public spaces.
A misdemeanor is the bare minimum we should be implementing for illegal drug use in our public spaces.
I want to thank our City Attorney for taking the initiative in drafting this ordinance so that we can take this through the legislative process here at City Council and get something effective for Mayor Harrell to sign because our Mayor has stated very publicly that he's focused on public health and safety as well as the recovery of downtown.
I also look forward to working with my colleague, Council Member Sarah Nelson, who chairs the Economic Development Committee, and both of us serve on the City's Public Safety Committee.
Thank you, and I'll take questions.
A question for all three of you.
The governor just said a few minutes ago that he's in negotiations with the leadership of the House and Senate on a fix and hope in the next few days he'll announce a special session day in May.
My question is, would you rather have a statewide fix that may preempt cities from enacting their own laws regarding this, or would you rather have city control over drug possession and use of drugs on the street?
Which one would you prefer?
I think it's important to understand that cities are going to be the ones facing the brunt of this.
When we look at the face of addiction, it is all-encompassing.
It crosses all walks of life and all socioeconomic classes.
And I think it's important for them to understand that we are going to have that role of recreating social fabric.
And often the budget doesn't roll downhill.
We need to have treatment beds available.
The goal is always recovery, to disrupt antisocial behavior, to encourage people into treatment, and to make our streets, parks, and buses safer.
Thank you.
We can have both on the books.
It really depends on the details of what is worked out at the state level.
They said they were going to act in the past and they didn't.
So we shouldn't, as people are dying every day, we shouldn't delay here.
But depending on how they write it, we're talking about use in a public space.
They're talking about possession, which is a wider category.
So there's a way to have both laws on the books.
previous bills there was an inclusion about use in open space that would be prohibited to be would not be allowed but that's statewide would you prefer local control or statewide control they're they're not going to be inconsistent then if that's what they do because we would this is about public use and if they have it as public use that it'll it'll dovetail well
What do you all anticipate the actual impact of this will be?
The jails are fairly full and so saying, you know, we're going to crack down on this, you know, is one thing, but actually effectuating any change on the street is another.
So, you know, an SPD has said that they're going to focus, just the other day, that they're going to focus on higher level dealers and traffickers.
So, you know, how do you square that and what resources are you going to be able to put into actually making, you know, a visible difference?
The city attorney can speak more about the jail and issues outside of our control here at City Council, but I'll just say this.
We need to establish rules so that people know what is acceptable behavior and what they stand to be in violation of.
And like I said before, this provides a tool for officers to enforce the rules on the books.
So I would say that yes, I recognize that not talking about the jails being full, our officers are stretched thin.
And so people are going to ask about, well, how are they going to enforce this?
And I recognize that they're down 30% of their force.
And we need to make sure that they've got adequate staffing levels to be able to improve the public safety of people and businesses across the city.
What I'm worried about right now is getting the basics right and making explicit that we don't allow the public use of illegal drugs.
I just support every avenue to get people into treatment.
We need to be investing in in-custody treatment as well.
And we will continue to work with our diversion partners, again, with the goal of getting people into treatment and recovery.
This would be perhaps for the city attorney as well.
So I was talking with council member King County Council Member Reagan Dunn yesterday.
He said that you two were in conversation over what he has proposed for King County.
How does this new ordinance proposed here in Seattle?
How does that stack up?
Is there similarities?
Are there differences?
Because I know there's a concern that you could go city to city and county to county and you would have different public drug use bans.
I just learned of his action yesterday with the news release.
That's the first I'd heard of it.
And again, it is working with our council members here about what we are hearing from people in the city, which is they are wanting to have safer streets, parks, and buses.
And we are needing to say that the use of controlled substances is a crime.
And we need to be working with our diversion partners to get people into treatment.
That is always the goal and the focus.
And we need the state and local lawmakers to use the funds that have been tagged for this to get us the beds we need for the treatment.
Is there like you guys look at potential jail time for offenders or anything specific like that?
Again, we will continue to work with our diversion partners and I support every avenue to get people into treatment.
The focus here is to make our streets, buses and parks safer and this is one of those ways we can do that.
Why now instead of waiting a month to see what the ledge does?
Why introduce this now instead of waiting to see what the state does and filling in the gaps?
Let's remember that that gap is because of the Blake decision and because the temporary fix is going to expire.
And so that is what they're focusing on, possession.
We are focused on the use of public, of illegal drugs in the public.
They, you know, they're two separate.
They're two separate things, and they should both.
Ideally, we would be doing this in tandem, but that is not what that is not our reality right now, and so we're responding to the crisis at hand.
Along with this proposed legislation, will you be pursuing any parallel efforts to increase funding or access to treatment?
Well, we want the state legislature to act to provide more money for treatment.
They apparently had some money available, but part of them not passing the misdemeanor or possession law, the treatment money was lost with that.
So we're hoping that they deliver those treatment funds as well.
That's why we still want them to act.
As the person who has received treatment, let me address that.
We absolutely have to increase funding for treatment, but more importantly, we have to remove barriers to access.
And the executive order that was issued by the mayor this last week does contain one component, which expands the methodology that we can use to treat substance use disorder, and that is contingency management.
And I spoke out in favor of that because it rewards people for sobriety, and hopefully they can make a decision about their future, about perhaps going into recovery-based treatment once they've gotten that respite.
And so, yes, we absolutely have to increase funding.
That program that I just spoke of is funded by the Opioid Distributor Settlement, and we will see what happens at the state level.
But I would say that it's not just more money, it's money for what?
Two quick things.
One, a clarification, is this legislation you're proposing simply public use or is it also possession as well?
And then with regards to the state legislation that failed, it was largely a block of Seattle lawmakers that voted against it.
The Democrats could have passed it on their own.
What's your message to your own representatives that blocked this bill from passing?
I think this is a public use, which would be a subset of possession.
As you're right, the state legislature was talking about possession.
There was not agreement.
There was no compromise found.
What we are saying is it is time to solve the problems and focus on what they are supposed to do.
We put lawmakers there to help us make laws.
We need those because we are dealing with the problems on a day-to-day basis with our streets and our parks and our buses being unsafe and people then dying in the midst.
So it is important that we have that going forward.
So this is just a use because that is the part that is absent at the moment where we can be instrumental in helping to make those safer.
Yeah, I just have a follow-up.
I speak to addicts every single day and they say to me, police aren't going to do anything about it, prosecutors aren't going to do anything about it.
Why is this only going to be a misdemeanor?
Why not make it a felony to send a stronger message?
As you would know, the state statute that was found unconstitutional was for a class C felony.
That's what would come into effect July 1st when this temporary fix expires.
In our view, the current temporary fix puts the state law as a misdemeanor, so we should not be going above that.
We cannot go above that, so we cannot make it a gross misdemeanor or anything else.
That's why this is that.
After July 1st, if there's not a compromise, then there is the ability to go above.
And that's ultimately what I was asking.
If there's nothing, there are no compromise before July, would you consider taking this felony?
As I said, we can't do that because it could be contrary to state law.
The current temporary fix is set as a misdemeanor for possession.
And that's why this has to be set as that, because we have to be following what is already set there, even in the temporary fix in state law.
At this point, are you getting buy-in right now from your other members?
Or are you getting some pushback right now?
Who do you think will stand with you two right now?
I've learned not to make predictions, but I am hopeful.
Because I represent the same people that they do.
And we're all hearing the same stories.
And so I am optimistic that we can move forward.
I just say that I think city council members were here that this is a common sense approach to making our parks, buses and streets safer and getting people into treatment.
Have you guys received feedback from Seattle police on the specific legislation about enforcing this and what were their thoughts and what did they say?
We wanted you to hear it first, just kidding.
This is all happening very fast and we have notified them and the mayor's office is leading on that communication.
Based on what I have heard in the past, I don't see this would be met with resistance.
Yeah, so I'm interested to kind of understand you mentioned the drug reward program.
Are you going to be working with Plymouth housing on this?
Is it going to be a collaborative approach or how does this play into this ordinance?
This is.
What you're referring to, which is the contingency management program or the gift card program, that is not part of what we're talking about right now.
But just for some information about that, it is going to be Plymouth Housing as a partner with the city, because it's those residents that will be enrolled in that program.
Wait, can I say one more thing on the record?
I just want to thank City Attorney Anne Davison because it's wonderful to work with you on a shared priority and thank you very much for the urgency.
Thank you.