Addressing opioids is ‘issue of the year’ for Snohomish County

EVERETT — Snohomish County has a wishlist of three priorities to revise state law related to the drug epidemic in the next state legislative session.

The county wants to put all its weight behind slowing down the drug epidemic, said Jared Mead, chair of the Snohomish County Council.

Starting in January, the county hopes state leaders can tackle the following:

• Updating a law allowing the state to involuntarily commit people to drug treatment, known as Ricky’s Law, in light of the fentanyl epidemic;

• Address drug addiction in schools by amending education standards to include opioids;

• Increase the amount of time people can be in drug and alcohol treatment before they need approval from their health insurance.

At a meeting last month, County Council members unanimously approved the priorities compiled by the county executive’s office, with Sam Low, a state legislator, recusing himself from the vote.

“We recognize as a council that this is the issue of the year for us,” Mead said. “Confronting the drug epidemic, it’s multifaceted, there isn’t a simple solution, so I think it does require a full frontal assault.”

In 2023, at least 194 people have died from a drug overdose involving fentanyl in Snohomish County.

‘Saved by his own law’

Lawmakers passed the civil commitment legislation Ricky’s Law in 2016, when fentanyl was not at the forefront of the drug epidemic, Mead said.

The county wants the law to specify a person with a history of fentanyl addiction should be subject to involuntary detention if they’re likely to experience a life-threatening overdose.

The county also wants to see more secure withdrawal management and stabilization beds, known as Ricky’s Law beds. There are 77 beds across the state, but none are in Snohomish County.

On any given night, half of the beds statewide are empty, said state Rep. Lauren Davis, a Democrat from Shoreline who sponsored Ricky’s Law as a citizen before she was elected to the Legislature.

Davis named it after her best friend Ricky Klausmeyer-Garcia, who struggled with alcohol addiction.

“He was saved by his own law on three separate occasions,” Davis said.

Earlier this year, Klausmeyer-Garcia died at a treatment facility in Kirkland.

The need for more civil commitment beds is clear, but the law is being underused, Davis said. In Snohomish County, she said, a huge roadblock is transportation.

By state law, civil commitment patients have to be transported by ambulance to a secure facility. The ambulance company is only paid when transporting someone, but not on the way back.

Davis said it has been difficult to contract ambulances to transport Ricky’s Law patients because companies don’t want to lose money transporting someone across the state to an open bed.

The closest secured treatment facility is in King County, but it is almost always full.

If emergency vehicle staff were paid for the whole trip, crews would be more likely to take patients to Chehalis, where there are many empty Ricky’s Law beds every night.

A facility in Snohomish County with Ricky’s Law beds would also ease some of the resistance, Davis thinks. But finding local providers willing to open such a facility is another challenge when they see open beds in other counties.

“It’s really hard to keep your doors open, and it’s really hard to incentivize other providers to want to take on that business,” she said.

Before the next session, Davis plans on meeting with stakeholders to discuss what changes they can make to move past these obstacles.

Despite the hurdles, however, she thinks the law has been effective. The vast majority of civil commitment patients complete treatment, she said, citing a King County locked facility that reported 95% of people later transferred to an unlocked facility and finished their program.

‘It is still vital’

Another hope from the County Council is to update education standards in schools to talk about the dangers of opioids like fentanyl.

Mead said high schools and middle schools should be having serious conversations about new drugs and students should understand their risks.

“Kids need to be rightfully scared of them,” he said.

The third priority aims to remove barriers to care by extending the amount of time people can stay in treatment without “prior authorization” from their insurance.

County officials want legislators to extend inpatient drug treatment without preauthorization from 28 days to 60 days. For patients in detox, the county thinks it would be beneficial to allow people to stay in detox for up to 10 days rather than five.

Mead said increasing treatment beds is important, but noted there is a lot more to be done to address the drug epidemic.

“You can have all the treatment capacity in the world, but if we don’t have language that allows us to get people into those beds, or keep them in the beds, it’s not going to address anything,” he said.

But the county isn’t going to stop requesting money for treatment capacity, Mead said.

“We’re still going to advocate for that,” he said. “It is still vital.”

Come January, lawmakers will have 60 days to push bills through the House and Senate.

Mead served in the state House from 2019 to 2021.

“Even though it’s a short session,” he said, “there is a lot of momentum statewide to address the epidemic in these types of ways.”

Jenelle Baumbach: 360-352-8623; jenelle.baumbach@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @jenelleclar.