Drugs, addiction are feeding much of our public misery

Published 1:30 am Thursday, January 11, 2024

Clare’s Place residents displaced for over three months (“Displaced residents of Clare’s Place still believe in ‘Housing First,” The Herald, Dec. 29). Smash and grab at Kushmart on Evergreen Way. Persistent south Everett Fred Meyer shoplifting. Days Inn sitting useless for a year while awaiting detoxification. What do these recent Herald stories have in common? The one word cause of these recent events is drugs.

One, or a few, active drug users at Clare’s Place contaminated the whole place, putting 60 residents into temporary pallet shelters at a cost of over $400,000. Persistent shoplifting at Fred Meyer is largely the result of drug dealers providing shopping lists in exchange for a fix. And yet, there is a large public outcry over mandatory drug-screening for homeless and indigent people in exchange for admission to city and county shelters, as well as calls for lowering penalties for drug possession.

I don’t know if this can be screamed loud enough: Wake up people! Drugs are at the root of a majority of crime and also disproportionately impact the general public, as well as that same homeless and indigent population that everyone is so concerned about. Your tax dollars are paying for increased law enforcement, temporary homeless shelters and store price increases needed to offset the stealing. Until and unless stricter penalties for drug possession and dealing are enacted and enforced, as well as mandatory testing and counseling in exchange for shelter, this root cause will continue to flourish and spread, just like weeds in a lawn.

Fabian Borowiecki

Everett