{"id":2452992,"date":"2025-06-27T14:51:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T18:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wa-could-create-buyers-club-for-drug-addicts-under-recommendations-washington-examiner\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T14:56:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T18:56:10","slug":"wa-could-create-buyers-club-for-drug-addicts-under-recommendations-washington-examiner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wa-could-create-buyers-club-for-drug-addicts-under-recommendations-washington-examiner\/","title":{"rendered":"WA could create \u2018buyers club\u2019 for drug addicts under recommendations &#8211; Washington Examiner"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwa-could-create-buyers-club-for-drug-addicts-under-recommendations-washington-examiner%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2452992&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>washington state is considering a controversial approach to address the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/walgreens-hit-with-a-lawsuit-for-highly-suspicious-selling-of-these-meds\/\" title=\"Walgreens Hit With a Lawsuit for \u201cHighly Suspicious\u201d Selling of These Meds\">ongoing opioid crisis<\/a>, as recommended by the Substance Use Recovery Services Advisory Committee (SURSAC). Their proposals include creating a &#8220;buyers club&#8221; for drug addicts, where the state would act as a supplier of safer drugs. This comes as part of a broader &#8220;safer supply&#8221; strategy aimed at reducing overdose deaths and providing better access to treatment and recovery services. Other suggestions include establishing supervised consumption sites and allowing prescriptions for substances outside of clinical settings.However, critics, including rep. Travis Couture, argue that this approach could exacerbate the crisis by essentially normalizing drug use, contending that it represents a failure to adequately address addiction and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/l-a-county-d-a-gascon-dismantles-hardcore-gang-unit-for-new-public-health-approach\/\" title=\"L.A. County D.A. Gasc\u00f3n Dismantles Hardcore Gang Unit For New \u2018Public Health Approach\u2019\">improve public safety<\/a>. The state&#8217;s plan is part of a clinical trial proposal to evaluate these methods further.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-header-search-button-mob dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search\" aria-labelledby=\"td-header-search-button\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search-inner\">\n<form method=\"get\" class=\"tdb-search-form\" action=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\"><\/form>\n<div class=\"tdb-aj-search\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/#\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Search\" class=\"tdb-head-search-btn dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">WA could create &lsquo;buyers club&rsquo; for drug addicts under recommendations<\/h1>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-title-line\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div id=\"Brid_2159918\" class=\"tpd-featured-video bridtv\"><\/div>\n<p>(The Center Square) &ndash; As part of the solution to addressing the ongoing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/opioids\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">opioid epidemic,<\/a> a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/washington\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Washington<\/a> Health Care Authority work group has released recommendations that include turning the state into a drug supplier of sorts as part of a plan to provide safer drugs to addicts.<\/p>\n<p>The&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hca.wa.gov\/about-hca\/programs-and-initiatives\/behavioral-health-and-recovery\/substance-use-recovery-services-advisory-committee-sursac\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Substance Use Recovery Services Advisory Committee<\/a>, or SURSAC, was created via legislation in 2021 to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/u-k-s-national-health-service-demands-written-explanation-if-white-candidate-hired-over-ethnic-minority\/\" title=\"U.K.&#039;s National Health Service Requires Written Ex...ation If White Candidate is Hired over Ethnic Minority\">provide suggestions<\/a> to lawmakers around substance use policy and treatment options.<\/p>\n<div class=\"recommended-stories\">\n<h2>Recommended Stories<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/supreme-court\/3456380\/amy-coney-barrett-dismisses-ketanji-brown-jackson-dissent-nationwide-injunctions\/\">Amy Coney Barrett dismisses Ketanji Brown Jackson&#8217;s dissent on nationwide injunction decision<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/house\/3456277\/ritchie-torres-flames-ogles-investigation-into-mamdani-citizenship\/\">Torres flames Ogles investigation into Mamdani&#8217;s citizenship: &#8216;Profoundly unAmerican&#8217;<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/3456431\/proposal-tren-de-aragua-infiltration-clears-committee\/\">Proposal to solve Tren de Aragua infiltration clears committee<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<p>SURSAC developed a set of proposals in a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hca.wa.gov\/assets\/program\/substance-use-and-recovery-servics-plan-leg-report-2023.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Substance Use and Recovery Services Plan<\/a>, which was released in January 2023, and &ldquo;outlined strategies to reduce overdoses and improve access to outreach, treatment, and recovery support for people with substance use disorder,&rdquo; Katie Pope, deputy chief communications officer with the Health Care Authority, emailed The Center Square.<\/p>\n<p>The work group provided its&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hca.wa.gov\/assets\/sursac-plan-recommendation-fourteen.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">recommendations<\/a>&nbsp;to the public on June 13, one of which is the concept of a &ldquo;buyers club&rdquo; as one of four potential frameworks for implementing a &ldquo;safer supply&rdquo; program.<\/p>\n<p>The other three models include the state establishing a &ldquo;supervised consumption&rdquo; location where drugs are prescribed and administered in a supervised setting, prescribing and dispensing drugs to users who can administer them outside of a supervised setting, and making drugs like cannabis available without a prescription in dispensaries and shops.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Travis Couture, R-Allyn, who has repeatedly offered legislation to <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >require drug-addicted parents<\/a> to undergo treatment before regaining custody of their children, has some reservations about the buyers club approach.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been going in absolutely the wrong direction,&rdquo; he told The Center Square.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s just terrible, and we see this mass human misery and suffering in our streets, and sometimes behind closed doors, and involving children. I mean we&rsquo;ve got the highest drug-related deaths on record in our state, and while the rest of the country is kind of starting to recover from a lot of this stuff, we&rsquo;re the only state that&rsquo;s going in the opposite direction.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Couture&rsquo;s mention of Washington having the highest drug-related deaths was about a recently released&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecentersquare.com\/washington\/article_a06df57d-34d3-41ca-9643-db94908fbe84.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">report<\/a>&nbsp;from the Department of Children, Youth &amp; Families that found 27 children under state supervision died or suffered a near-fatal incident in the first three months of 2025. More than half of those were fentanyl related.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The lawmaker said SURSAC doesn&rsquo;t seem willing to listen to alternative methods for tackling the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/west-coast-democrat-leaders-create-safe-haven-for-out-of-state-abortion-seekers\/\" title=\"West Coast Democrat Leaders Create &quot;Safe Haven&quot; for Out-of-... Abortion Seekers\">worsening drug crisis<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;They only want to double down on the failures and what we&rsquo;re talking about here is taxpayer-funded drug dealing where the state would hand out heroin, fentanyl and meth on our dime, and that&rsquo;s not treatment, that&rsquo;s surrender,&rdquo; Couture said.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/justice\/3451172\/doj-sues-washington-clergy-law-catholic-report-suspected-child-abuse\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">DOJ SUES WASHINGTON STATE OVER ANTI-CATHOLIC LAW<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>SURSAC proposes that the state allow a clinical trial, potentially conducted by a university in Washington, to evaluate a safer supply model. The group also urges lawmakers to pass legislation establishing a&nbsp;scalable, safer supply pilot program.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;As much as I want to be optimistic and hope that this doesn&rsquo;t have a chance in the Legislature, we&rsquo;ve seen this movie before, and we&rsquo;ve seen [Gov.] Bob Ferguson basically push, throughout his career, drug legalization, so we know that he has the ability to sign something like that,&rdquo; Couture said. &ldquo;This is not only giving the drug paraphernalia and a place to do it &mdash; the government-operated drug dens, as they call them &ndash; but now they want to be the drug dealer themselves. I mean, these are illegal narcotics. They&rsquo;re dangerous. They&rsquo;re killing people. We should be getting rid of them, not supplying them.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <script data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/cdn-cgi\/scripts\/5c5dd728\/cloudflare-static\/email-decode.min.js\"><\/script><script>!function(){var g=window;g.googletag=g.googletag||{},g.googletag.cmd=g.googletag.cmd||[],g.googletag.cmd.push(function(){g.googletag.pubads().setTargeting(\"has-featured-video\",\"true\")})}();<\/script><script>var _bp=_bp||[];_bp.push({\"div\":\"Brid_2159918\",\"obj\":{\"id\":\"27789\",\"width\":\"1280\",\"height\":\"720\",\"stickyDirection\":\"below\",\"video\":\"2159918\"}});<\/script><script defer src=\"https:\/\/services.brid.tv\/player\/build\/brid.min.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WA may establish a &#8216;buyers club&#8217; for drug users as part of opioid crisis solutions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2452993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/opiod-crisis-pill-bottle.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[58057,58058,42163],"class_list":["post-2452992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-buyers-club","tag-drug-addicts","tag-wa"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/opiod-crisis-pill-bottle.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2452992"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2452996,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452992\/revisions\/2452996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2452993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2452992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2452992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}