After voting to effectively decriminalize drug use, Seattle struggles for direction

Photo credit: City of Seattle

While my main focus is Renton, I’m analyzing the Seattle drug response for four main reasons: (1) substance abusers will travel between cities without knowing boundaries; (2) Seattle wants to use the King County Prosecutor to prosecute their misdemeanors (which Seattle is supposed to do themselves), but Renton needs the prosecutor to focus on felony prosecutions (3) Some Renton Council Members show tendencies to follow Seattle Council’s lead on issues; (4) Some Seattle residents frequently attend Renton Council Meetings to tell our Council what to do

Seattle’s Mayor Harrell appears to understand the bleak future awaiting Seattle as  fentanyl and other hard drugs are effectively decriminalized at the end of the month.  He’s called for a working group of Council, Mayor’s office, City Attorney, Court, Police, and other stakeholders to find solutions to the drug crisis before it gets worse, when Seattle likely becomes the only city in Washington where hard drug possession is decriminalized.

The working group Mayor Harrell is calling for is the list of departments that would typically be engaged in Renton as part of normal business whenever we are considering new legislation.  When reviewing a potential new Renton law in Public Safety Committee,  these parties would usually participate in the meeting or provide comments via the City attorney’s office.  The Seattle Council, as the legislative body, should have taken responsibility to hear from these departments before they voted on their ordinance.  This leaves doubt as to who the council is getting input from before they make decisions that affect their city and our entire region.

In Mayor Harrell’s official city press release, Seattle Council Member Lisa Herbold was given an opportunity for comment and she emphasised where she got some of her input– from a letter that she proclaimed was signed by “more than a hundred doctors.”

In her words: “I hope that, like this letter from more than a hundred doctors calls for, we can focus our efforts on ‘smart, data-proven policy that will achieve our intended goals, not naive, reactive, and harmful policy that repeats the mistakes of the past.’” 

I was intrigued that over a hundred doctors would sign a letter to Seattle Council, but when I clicked the link I discovered that the letter was signed by only about 20-25 doctors along with other health workers and lay people.  While the input of non-doctors is also important, it’s dishonest for an official city press release to call the list of signatories “more than a hundred doctors”, especially in the same sentence that the Council Member calls for “smart, data-proven policy.”  It makes me wonder whether the Council Member even read the letter she is touting, or whether she considers accurate use of doctor credentials to even be important.

Upon reading the letter (signed by a mix of health care workers and lay people,)  it sounded to me to be more likely to be written by a political staffer or an AI powered chatbot than professional medical personnel.   For instance their letter says “In alignment with the Mayor’s Executive Order, we need to enact smart, data-proven policy that will achieve our intended goals, not naive, reactive, and harmful policy that repeats the mistakes of the past. ”

I took the letter’s advice and did a web search for “data-proven policy” from a legitimate source regarding incarceration and drug addiction. I found scholarly work by the National Institute of Health (NIH), the largest biomedical research facility in the United States with a professional reputation on par with Harvard University, on the exact topic.  And, as many of you can probably guess, the NIH research does not say that incarceration for drug related offenses is “naive, reactive, or harmful” when paired with substance abuse treatment.

Here are some quotes from NIH research papers, “Principles of Drug Abuse Treatment for Criminal Justice Populations – A Research-Based Guide”:

“Scientific research shows that drug abuse treatment can work even when an individual enters it under legal mandate. However, only a small percentage of those who need treatment actually receive it, and often the treatment provided is inadequate. To be effective, treatment must begin in prison and be sustained after release through participation in community treatment programs. By engaging in a continuing therapeutic process, individuals can learn how to avoid relapse and withdraw from a life of crime.”

….”Drug abuse treatment can be incorporated into criminal justice settings in a variety of ways. Examples include treatment in prison followed by community-based treatment after release; drug courts that blend judicial monitoring and sanctions with treatment by imposing treatment as a condition of probation; and treatment under parole or probation supervision. Drug abuse treatment can benefit from the cross-agency coordination and collaboration of criminal justice professionals, substance abuse treatment providers, and other social service agencies. By working together, the criminal justice and treatment systems can optimize resources to benefit the health, safety, and well-being of the individuals and communities they serve.”

Considering that Renton and the rest of the State of Washington have adopted residential rehab diversion alternatives, something I too support, that do not even require arrestees to go to jail if they seek treatment, it is dishonest for people to suggest that scholarly data rejects this approach.  One might wonder whether the doctors and others that signed the letter to Seattle Council reject everything that the National Institute of Health advises, or if they just pick and choose based on the politics of the day.

As a reminder, I would much rather have people get treatment than punishment, but we need an incentive to get people into treatment if we’re going to reverse the tragic overdose death rate in King County.