Renton Bans Safe Drug Consumption Sites

RENTON, WA - The Renton City Council on Monday night approved and ordinance outlawing safe-use sites. The safe-use facilities are being proposed as a solution to stop people from dying of drug overdoses, but many King County communities are rejecting them. King County and Seattle are working to open two such sites; one would go in a King County city, the other in Seattle.

Renton's ordinance rejects the safe-use cites citing public safety reasons, and that King County won't locate a safe-use site in a city that has outlawed them.

"[A]ddiction to heroin and illegal drug abuse deteriorates individual and community quality of life, fosters criminal activity, increases mortality, and burdens taxpayer funded services such as police, hospitals, and schools," the Renton ordinance reads.

Renton is the latest city in King County following Federal Way, Auburn, and Bellevue, to pass an ordinance against the sites. There are no safe-use sites in the U.S., but one in Vancouver, B.C., has served as a model for King County's take. Technically, any drug can be used in the facility, but proponents argue that the facilities will especially solve prevent deaths related to heroin overdoses.

A University of Washington report published last week found that 332 people in King County died of drug overdoses in 2016. About two-thirds of those deaths were due to heroin overdoses.

Along with individual cities deciding to outlaw the sites, a group called Citizens for a Safer King County is trying to get an initiative on the ballot to ban the sites county-wide.

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