WATCH: WA committee distances from drug use work group’s ‘buyers club’ suggestion

(The Center Square) – Washington’s Substance Use Recovery Services Advisory Committee, or SURSAC, is distancing itself from recent recommendations made by a subset work group that included having the state set up a “buyers club” to ensure a ”safer supply” of illegal drugs for addicts.

SURSAC was created via legislation in 2021 to provide suggestions to lawmakers regarding substance use policy and treatment options.

In 2023, SURSAC released the Substance Use and Recovery Services Plan, which included forming a statewide work group to explore a framework for safe supply, rather than the more dangerous illicit street market for hard drugs.

As reported by The Center Square, the Safe Supply Workgroup provided its recommendations on June 13, one of which was the concept of a “buyers club” for drugs like fentanyl and heroin.

The group also suggested the state set up “supervised consumption” sites 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.

The subsequent media attention came up at Monday’s SURSAC meeting.

“Over the past couple of weeks, there’s been a number of news articles covering the Safe Supply Workgroup and the work that [they] did and recommendations that came out of that work,” SURSAC Chair Tony Walton said. “That work group developed its own recommendations in a legislative report, and there’s just been a lot of inaccurate media coverage, and it's kind of being conflated with SURSAC.”

He indicated that the committee’s media liaison had reached out to media outlets to correct misinformation. No one contacted The Center Square following the June 26 publication, though Walton linked the article in the chat for other members to see.

“Unfortunate to see some of the way this is being presented and mischaracterized,” Walton continued.

SURSAC member Rep. Mari Leavitt, D-Steilacoom, who is new to the committee, asked Walton to clarify a few things about the Safe Supply Workgroup and media reports.

“It’s not clear what is incorrect and what is truth,” Leavitt explained. “Are you disassociating yourself [SURSAC] from the work group? Was the work group not part of this group as a subset?”

“SURSAC’s recommendation was to convene a work group,” explained Walton, who noted lawmakers funded the work group, which was facilitated by the Health Care Authority using $300,000 from the opioid abatement settlement account as a state appropriation.

The office of former Gov. Jay Inslee appointed work group members, which includes representatives from recovery housing, addiction services, and those with lived experience in recovery.

“What’s being conflated in the media coverage is that these are SURSAC’s recommendations, when in fact it’s the Safe Supply Workgroup’s recommendations,” Walton said.

“So, who does this work group report to?” asked Leavitt. “Who has jurisdiction over this work group?”

Walton said the work group has been disbanded.

“It was one-time funding, and the work group is no longer being facilitated. It had one goal, which was to develop a set of recommendations, and once those recommendations were submitted, I think the work group stopped meeting,” he added.

In a Tuesday interview with The Center Square, Leavitt said her questions were not really answered in the meeting.

"I was trying to understand, like, what is the infrastructure to this group, how is it staffed, and how is the contract executed, and who has responsibility for the contract? And so those were some of the questions I was seeking to gain clarity on, and it just wasn't clear from the chair," she said, indicating she hoped to meet with the chair again soon to get her questions answered.

SURSAC did not discuss whether any of its members would endorse the work group’s recommendations or the overall “safer supply.”

The group’s recommendations were provided to Washington lawmakers to consider.

Rep. Brian Burnett, R-Wenatchee, is also a new SURSAC member. He is not a fan of the “buyers club” approach.

“Let's look at the real-life scenario on the street, how it's impacting local economies, how it's impacting our neighborhoods, and how it's impacting families,” Burnett said. “If somebody's going to promote this, they better stand up and tell me why they think they're going to do this lunatic idea to have people go in and say we're going to provide dangerous drugs for drug addicted people.”

Safer supply is not currently practiced in the U.S., but according to a December 2024 report from the work group, “safer supply has been historically considered as an approach to the treatment of behavioral health disorders and overdose deaths. Prescription heroin was part of a national discourse after its approval in Canada in 2016.”

According to a March 2025 report from the Journal of the American Medical Association, Canada’s “safer opioid policy was associated with a statistically significant increase in opioid overdose hospitalizations but no change in overdose deaths; the addition of drug possession decriminalization was associated with a further increase in overdose hospitalizations. Neither the safer opioid supply policy nor the decriminalization of drug possession appeared to mitigate the opioid crisis, and both were associated with an increase in opioid overdose hospitalizations.”