King County voters will get a chance – possibly on the November general election ballot – to ban government-sponsored heroin injection sites, also known as safe injection sites.<\/p>\n
The Bothell-based Safe King County group collected enough signatures to put Initiative 27 in front of voters, according to King County Elections. If approved, the measure would ban government-sponsored heroin injection sites.<\/p>\n
“We are gratified to have finally cleared this hurdle and for I-27 to have officially qualified for the ballot,” said Safe King County chairman Joshua Freed in a media release Thursday. “Voters deserve to have their say on government-sponsored heroin injection sites before Executive (Dow) Constantine rushes to build them. We urge the King County Council to put I-27 on the November ballot at their meeting on Monday (Aug. 21).”<\/p>\n
The group needed to collect 47,443 valid signatures from registered voters. The county council could decide to put the measure on the Nov. 7 ballot or February’s ballot.<\/p>\n
The Kent City Council voted 6-1 on Tuesday to ban the safe injection sites in Kent. The city councils of Federal Way, Auburn, Renton and Bellevue also voted to ban the sites.<\/p>\n
The county council voted 5-4 in June to limit the use of county funds for establishing heroin injection sites only in cities whose elected leaders choose to allow the facilities.<\/p>\n
A county task force, appointed by Constantine and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, recommended earlier this year the creation of two safe-injection sites – one in Seattle and one at another county location. No sites have been picked. A total of 132 people died of heroin overdoses in the county in 2015, according to the task force’s website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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