Fentanyl is deadly. Washington’s newest laws respond to the crisis
Morphine was discovered in 1803 when a young German pharmacology assistant isolated it from an opium poppy. By the 1850s, the drug began commercial production. In the aftermath of the American Civil War (and the introduction of morphine to many of the war’s 860,000 living casualties), America showed signs of its first opioid crisis.
The drug responsible for the modern opioid crisis is 100 times more potent than morphine. The situation is much more severe.
“Fentanyl is the nuclear weapon of drugs,” said Gov. Jay Inslee during his December budget proposal.
Inslee’s proposals for the 2024 legislative session reflected the scale of the fentanyl problem. He pitched a comprehensive strategy to improve education, overdose prevention, treatment access, recovery supports, and first responder resources.
The Legislature matched the governor’s urgency throughout the session. On Tuesday, March 19 in Tulalip, Wash., Inslee signed a slate of bills to wrangle the fentanyl crisis and save lives. He also signed a set of bills to support Tribal health, education, workforce development, and language preservation.
These new policies are backed by record resources from the Legislature. The 2023–25 supplemental budget to be signed by Inslee later this month contributes an additional $79.4 million to the biennial budget’s allocation of $174.7 million toward substance use disorder programs. This brings the 2023–25 investment to over $254 million to fight addiction.
Saving lives through education, treatment, and overdose prevention
Fentanyl is deadly. A single pill can kill. It’s addictive. It’s cheap and available. It’s even starting to weave its way into lesser drugs. Two 16-year-old boys were killed recently when they smoked marijuana laced with fentanyl.
One of those boys was Lucas Petty, for whom HB 1956 was named. Lucas’ mom, Maria Trujillo Petty, testified ardently for the bill to the House and Senate this session. Inslee signed it Tuesday.
The bill was requested by the governor and sponsored by Rep. Mari Leavitt to incorporate fentanyl education into state health learning standards and to create a public health campaign. From now on, Washington students will have some understanding of the extreme dangers of opioids.
For her inspiring testimony that compelled the Legislature to support the bill unanimously, Trujillo Petty was honored with a blanketing from the Tulalip Tribe.
“No parent should have to go through the heartache of losing a child to an overdose,” said Leavitt. “Our kids are facing a opioid and fentanyl crisis that is deadly and unforgiving. As adults, we owe our kids the information they need to make smart decisions.”
But education is just one tier of the governor’s fentanyl strategy.
“We need to equip first responders with the life-saving materials they need,” said Inslee. “We need to implement programs in public education and prevention. We need special emphasis on youth and Tribal communities. We need to increase the number of treatment facilities to make it easier to get help.”
To support lifesaving efforts, the governor signed SB 5804 to require that most high schools carry overdose-reversing medications like naloxone, used 42 times inside Washington schools during the 2022–23 school year.
“The goal is to have life-saving tools available to students, teachers, and others in cases of both intentional and accidental exposure,” said sponsor Sen. Patty Kuderer.
To support Tribal prevention efforts, he signed SB 6099 to establish a Tribal opioid prevention and treatment account. The Legislature will prioritize the account for funds received from opioid settlements to respond to the acute effects of the opioid crisis on Tribal communities. Nationwide, the rate of overdose death is higher for American Indian and Alaska Native individuals than for any other demographic.
“Native American tribes are disproportionately affected, and they have taken a proactive approach to treatment that deserves support,” said Sen. John Braun, SB 6099’s sponsor. “Tribal treatment and recovery programs are usually also made available to non-Tribal members, and are therefore a critical resource for communities as a whole.”
To support treatment access, the governor signed bills to improve telehealth access and maternal health care for parents with a substance use disorder. In October, Inslee helped cut the ribbon at one such facility: the Evergreen Recovery Center in Everett, a live-in residential treatment facility for mothers and their babies to overcome addiction.
“Healthy babies make healthy adults,” said Sen. Ron Muzzall, SB 5580’s sponsor. “The investments we make in maternal health and pre- and postpartum will pay back large dividends to our society.”
The state’s newest laws will improve access to treatment. They’ll spare lives from fatal overdose. And they’ll reach Washingtonians young and hopefully influence them to avoid the dark path of drugs altogether.
Somebody asked me about the best thing about being governor,” said Inslee in December. “For me, it’s stories of healing. It’s when a guy in Vancouver showed me his little pallet shelter and told me about his progress in treatment. Those are stories I want to replicate.”
xʷiʔ gʷadsdxʷx̌ʷal̕igʷəd
This Lushootseed saying carries a message of reassurance: “Don’t give up.”
It was a phrase personified by the late Sen. John McCoy (lulilaš), who served in the state Legislature for 17 years until his retirement in 2020.
“He was a fighter for students, the environment, and Tribes,” wrote Gov. Jay Inslee upon McCoy’s death last year.
McCoy also fought to preserve Tribal languages and history. On Tuesday, Inslee signed a bill to rename the Tribal component of the public school curriculum to the “The John McCoy (lulilaš) Since Time Immemorial curriculum.”
“Just as McCoy deeply understood the significance of words and language, this renaming underscores the power and intention behind every aspect of education,” said Rep. Debra Lekanoff. “Education is not just about what we learn; it’s also about the stories we tell and the perspectives we honor.”
The governor also signed into law a grant program to enrich dual-language education to expand the learning of Tribal languages.
From language preservation to missing person recovery to career training, the policies Inslee signed Tuesday continue Tribal progress across a number of categories.
