Issaquah To Consider Moratorium On Safe-Use Sites

ISSAQUAH, WA - The Issaquah City Council on Monday might approve a six-month moratorium on safe-use sites, which are facilities where people can use drugs under medical supervision. King County and Seattle are working to open two such sites, also called Community Health Engagement Locations. One would go in a King County city, the other in Seattle.

Issaquah's ordinance acknowledges that drug use is a serious problem affecting city and county residents. At the same time, the ordinance makes it clear city officials don't want people using drugs under supervision within city limits.

"The City Council finds that there is not sufficient evidence to support the siting of a Community Health Engagement Location within the City of Issaquah; and ... the siting of a Community Health

Engagement Location within the City of Issaquah would be detrimental to the public interest," the ordinance reads.

Issaquah would be the latest city in King County following Renton, 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. 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 month found that 332 people in King County died of drug overdoses in 2016. About two-thirds of those deaths were due to heroin overdoses.

Meanwhile, the King County Council is considering placing an initiative on the February ballot to counteract Initiative 27, which would ban safe-use sites county-wide for good.

File photo/Seattle police