Could B.C.’s safe drug supply experiment work in Washington?

published on July 15, 2024 by Andrew Engelson in Crosscut (Cascade PBS)

If you met BeeLee Lee in the lobby of her apartment building in Vancouver, British Columbia, you probably wouldn’t suspect that just a few years ago, she nearly died several times from fentanyl overdoses.

Lee, who’s nearly always accompanied by Sadie, her loyal labrador/husky companion, now has her life in order. She has a full-time job, is reconnecting with her children and grandchildren and leads a stable, middle-class life.

What made that possible, Lee says, is safe supply – a system of prescribed, regulated drugs that serve as an alternative to fentanyl.

In Washington, a work group funded by the Legislature in 2023 is examining what it would take to set up a safe-supply system similar to the one launched in British Columbia in 2020. The work group is the first government-sanctioned panel in the United States tasked with making policy recommendations about safe supply. It will submit its recommendations by the end of the year…