Just three months after Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell signed a controversial ordinance that empowered the city to prosecute possession and public use of illegal drugs into law, diversion program workers say they have received a surge in new referrals from the Seattle Police Department (SPD).
New data backs the assertion that enforcement led to a spike in referrals to Purpose Dignity Action’s (PDA) diversion program, Let Everyone Advance in Dignity (LEAD). The drug ordinance dominated Seattle’s political discourse for much of 2023.
In October and November, cops referred 89 people to LEAD. Just over 94% of those police referrals came after Oct. 20, when the ordinance went into effect. During that same time, the LEAD program also accepted 44 community referrals.
LEAD assigns participants to case managers, who help them navigate various barriers and access services like housing and addiction treatment. According to a Dec. 12 presentation by PDA to the city council, the organization says it has already stopped accepting most community referrals due to being near capacity, with the average case manager working with 14 clients.
While the organization says it could theoretically handle up to 300 new participants, that increase would translate to case managers facing an even heavier workload with 20 clients each.
LEAD East Precinct and Third Avenue project manager Michelle McClendon said the street-based outreach team We Deliver Care, which subcontracts with PDA, encountered and helped 279 people in downtown Seattle in November.
“We know that, with the new ordinance … that arrest diversions and [police-initiated] social contacts, with the fentanyl epidemic, are only going to increase,” McClendon said. “We’ve already seen that from the day that the ordinance went into effect. So we’re saturated … at this time.”
The saga around the new drug law started after the Washington Legislature failed to reach an agreement in April over how to revise Washington’s criminal code to align with a mandate from the state Supreme Court. In response, municipal politicians across the state began drafting local ordinances criminalizing drug possession and public use.
In part to prevent a patchwork of different laws from being enforced across various jurisdictions, in May, Gov. Jay Inslee called a special legislative session that made drug possession and public use a gross misdemeanor, punishable with up to 364 days of jail time. The law also, for the first time, made public use of drugs a crime.
Following the passage of the state law, conservative Seattle City Council members introduced a bill to implement the same criminal penalties on the city level. The main impact would be to allow the Seattle City Attorney’s Office (CAO) — headed up by Republican Ann Davison — to prosecute those new cases. The CAO has never prosecuted drug possession before, which was previously a felony handled by the King County prosecutor.
In response to the bill, decriminalization advocates mobilized hundreds of community members to testify against what they dubbed the “new war on drugs.” The council was persuaded by their argument that the new law would exacerbate existing racial injustices in the legal system and dramatically voted down the ordinance in a 4-5 vote on June 6.
The backlash to this decision was swift and fierce, with Davison accusing the council of making Seattle the only city in Washington “where it is legal to use hard drugs in public.” Right-wing pundits criticized the decision as another iteration of the “defund” agenda, and wealthy donors poured thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to right-leaning city council candidates.
Immediately after the vote, Harrell and moderate city council members formed a working group to revise the drug ordinance. Substantively, the two bills were virtually identical. However, the new version included a plan to maximize diversion opportunities and a small amount of funds for more substance use disorder treatment.
Ultimately, the revised version of the drug ordinance passed the council with a vote of 6 to 3 on Sept. 19. Despite the Seattle Office for Civil Rights stating the new law would still negatively impact racial equity, much of the opposition had dissipated. Moderate and left-leaning city council candidates fared poorly in the November elections. Andrew Lewis — the pivotal swing vote who blocked the first version of the drug ordinance — was ousted by a little more than 400 votes.
Apart from the political consequences, the law is also having real world effects on people who have been historically targeted by police, as predicted by decriminalization activists. In particular, it appears the main focus of enforcement is against visibly homeless people who have no shelter.
“Maybe 70 to 90% are unsheltered,” McClendon said. “These are folks that law enforcement’s been encountering in encampments and parks … due to them trespassing — you’re on a business property, or you’re in a high traffic place that you shouldn’t be in. Or when you’re in a heavily populated area, it now becomes an ‘eyesore’ to the community.”
Right now, it’s too early to know how many people will end up being prosecuted or diverted.
According to McClendon, SPD officers typically give people they refer to LEAD 30 days to achieve progress in the program. If the individuals fail to enter the diversion program, cops can refer them to the CAO for criminal prosecution.
In a Dec. 6 email, a spokesperson for CAO stated three people have been referred by SPD to the office. The Seattle Municipal Court has not recorded any prosecutions as of Dec. 5 under the new drug ordinance.
PDA’s goal is to mitigate involvement with the criminal legal system and avoid further destabilization for people. McClendon hopes policymakers will prioritize the agency and autonomy of LEAD participants, who are some of the most marginalized and maligned people in Seattle.
“I have to remind our community members, our stakeholders or whoever I may encounter, just think about it. What if this was your cousin, your brother, your sister, your aunt, your uncle?” she said. “I understand that we want to address public safety. But if we want to also address public safety, we have to go back to the basics, which is restoring hope, integrity and dignity.
“At the end of the day, these are all humans who’ve been impacted. Everyone has a story. We’ve all been impacted by something.”
Guy Oron is the staff reporter for Real Change. He handles coverage of our weekly news stories. Find them on Twitter, @GuyOron.
Read more of the Dec. 20–26, 2023 issue.