Seattle now has the thankless task of administering a recriminalization of drugs foisted upon it by the legislature.

The fun part here will be the challenge coming to the Stranger’s writers if Seattle starts enforcing the drugs laws specifically to sweep homeless encampments. Watching them complain about the accelerated sweeps while, at the very same time, maintaining their 20-miles-thick-bedrock-solid denial on the presence of drugs in the encampments should make for a popcorn-worthy exercise in public doublethink and crimestop. (I’m guessing it’ll be a loud and tight focus on fentanyl overdoses in jails, whilst continuing to ignore the larger number of fentanyl overdoses in the camps.)

Wait, so they're actually going to get serious and go after the wealthy drug pushers at the top of the chain and the white suburbanites who are the vast majority of their users?

... oh ....

Maybe you should do that.

@3 wow, never thought you'd be advocating for going after the cartels in Mexico. Kudos to you.

@3: Um, how exactly are officers in the Seattle Police Department supposed to arrest “white suburbanites”? Start kidnapping them from Bellevue Square and Redmond Town Center? Or do you believe the suburbanites who stopped commuting into downtown Seattle with the onset of COVID are still driving in by the thousands to buy drugs?

(Also, there are still a lot of homeless encampments in Seattle, so that’s a lot of drug users. You might want to check your math.)

I love how all the comments are from people who obviously were not running for Seattle City Council Position 3 at last night's KEXP forum.

Every. Single. One. Of. Them. Don't. Want. The War on Health.

All of them.

@8: As the entire history of District 3’s Council representation consists of said representative becoming an ever-lonelier, ever-more-irrelevant afterthought to actual city business, having all of the current candidates oppose the mayor’s policy fits perfectly into the dismal and frustrating situation which District 3’s long-suffering citizens have come to expect of Seattle’s democracy.

As I explained @1, the unpleasant truths here include the state courts and legislature forcing Seattle into a reactive position. Making simple possession of drugs illegal is very bad policy, but after many years of de facto drug legalization in Seattle (without the consent of the citizens, BTW) resulting in massive influx of already-addicted persons into the city, Seattle faces the unwanted and distasteful choice of either matching state policy, or risk having even more drug users descend upon the city. Candidates who don’t understand this has better start making an attempt to do so.

@9: “… at least we're trying some middle of the road solutions that preserve the dignity of both users and critics.”

And how’s that going?

“As of May 17, 20% of the county’s 530 overdose deaths this year — 104 people — were those living in shelter or in vehicles, encampments and outside — a rate on track to break last year’s record as the deadliest for overdoses in King County’s homeless population.” (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/fentanyl-has-devastated-king-countys-homeless-population-and-the-toll-is-getting-worse/?amp=1)

The solution you deride as the work of “a sociopath with a murderous attitude that won't do anything to solve the problem” is in fact the actual solution, currently under de facto implementation. But Sir Toby had nothing to do with creating or implementing this solution, other than being merely another Seattle citizen and taxpayer.

For over seven years now, Seattle’s elected leaders have lied to Seattle’s citizens. They have pretended Seattle’s homeless problem is one of hard-working locals, “victims of capitalism,” driven out into the street by Amazon’s many good-paying jobs raising everyone’s rents. This story says all the homeless need is shelter and financial help to get back into stable housing. These elected officials have carefully ignored what anyone who ever walked past an actual homeless encampment immediately saw: a public-health crisis of addiction, amongst persons who were never stably housed in Seattle.

These lies, and the policies based upon these lies, resulted in Seattle enabling addiction on a massive scale. As Sir Toby mentioned, huge areas of Seattle’s parklands, greenbelts, sidewalks, and other once-shared public spaces were simply abandoned to illegal private use by homeless campers. No organized effort was ever made to offer addiction services to these campers, because even offering such aid would violate the official lies.

You can blame Sir Toby if it makes you feel better, but he’s merely the messenger, telling you the end result of enabling addiction with lies. It’s the liars you should blame: then-CM O’Brien, now-CM Sawant and others, and the liars here at the Stranger who supported them. They are the ones responsible for wasting huge amounts of public money enabling addicts to die.

@14: Yell at me all you want; homeless persons will continue to die. This is the entirely predictable result of allowing huge numbers of drug addicts to congregate in filthy encampments, feeding their addictions with proceeds from theft and assault crimes.

In your years commenting here, how many stories have you read of Seattle’s campers transitioning to stable housing, either directly, or via tiny houses, or other shelter options? I’m guessing that number totals to zero. So Seattle’s homeless policy has been a complete and colossal failure on its own terms. Yelling at me for telling you of this failure will also accomplish nothing to change this failure.

How about you yell at the makers of this policy, or at their supporters here at the Stranger? While that may also accomplish nothing, at least you’ll have chosen targets who can do something.

@14: And, for all those words you typed, complaining about what I wrote, you didn’t cite a single example of any fact I got wrong. Here’s how that’s done:

“…. as if one CM is responsible for the opioid crisis plaguing the streets of every corner of our country in one election cycle.”

CM Sawant wasn’t even the first CM I’d mentioned @13; former CM Mike O’Brien was. His extensive lying about the homeless — he repeatedly, loudly, and wrongly claimed they had once been stably housed in Seattle — cost him his job on the Council, and he departed years ago.

So, you’re either illiterate, innumerate, enraged at my daring to criticize your darling cult leader Sawant, or whatever combination of those gives you the greatest feeling of pride. In no way are you competent to critique what I wrote.

DISTRICT 7 - Send District 7 Seattle City Council Member, Andrew Lewis, back to his mom’s basement! -
+ VOTE FOR Olga Sagan, owner of Piroshky Peroshky – a vocal critic of violence and open drug dealing & using downtown public places incuding transit! Andrew's stunning reversal to adopt the state law AND then develop guidance how to use it respectfully, and sensitively for those in need of treatment. ..
Show Andrew Lewis the door! He deserves the nickname, FLIPPER! He was elected four years ago in part for his acknowledgment that Seattle has the lowest representation of police per person of any large city in America. Then Andrew voted to take funds from Seattle budget to lower further the number of police. Then, led the effort to remove Seattle laws that made loitering a to sell illegal drugs a crime. Then, led the effort to remove Seattle laws that made loitering of sex workers a crime. Then, joined police defunders Sawant, Mosqueda, Morales & Strauss posing for a selfie in front of the abandoned East SPD Precinct during CHOP 'the summer of love'. . Now, 'FLIPPED' to vote to let stand no consequences for public use of illegal drugs such as fentanyl or shoplifting or simple assaults -- caring less about downtown businesses that have victimized for years. .
And now, as Andrew Lewis apparently just found out there was a problem, he was “appointed to a 24-member work group” and he’s dedicating his office to “the Fentanyl Systems Work Group” to develop a 'policy'. Meanwhile there are no consequences for those who commit violent crime, open drug use, theft and simple assaults. Where’s Andrew been? Andrew Lewis cannot be trusted to represent Downtown and Seattle.