Jason Rantz is host of the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH Radio Seattle and author of ‘What’s Killing America: A look into the tragic destruction of our cities by the radical left
What about America’s crippling drug epidemic?
Look no further than the Emerald City, known for the Space Needle, hip coffee shops and of course meth and fentanyl, which is killing a historic number of locals.
If you dare take public transportation in Seattle, you’re almost guaranteed to be exposed to these vile, soul-crushing poisons.
In 2022, there were nearly 1,900 reports of drug use in the bus system, 52 operators exposed to drug smoke, and 16 employee claims for exposure.
“I don’t want to be in a predicament where I’m exposed to drugs every day at work,” bus driver Stevon Williams told a local news station. He believes inhaling fentanyl smoke made him sick.
So, after relentless pressure from the local transportation workers union, King County Metro and Pacific Northwest transit agencies finally coughed up the money for a University of Washington (UW) study into how toxic it is in Stevon’s workplace.
Researchers examining air and surface samples from 11 buses and 19 rail cars during evening routes found that 100 percent of the air samples and 98 percent of the surfaces were contaminated with meth. Twenty-five percent of air samples and 46 percent of surfaces showed traces of fentanyl.
What followed was painfully predictable, especially in the insufferably blue Pacific Northwest.
Hard-working bus and train operators, tax-paying commuters and school-age children had nothing to worry about. A little meth or fentanyl won’t kill you.
In 2022, there were nearly 1,900 reports of drug use in the bus system, 52 operators exposed to drug smoke, and 16 employee claims for exposure. (Above) Surveillance footage of a woman allegedly smoking illegal substances on the King County Metro bus
“I don’t want to be in a predicament where I’m exposed to drugs every day at work,” bus driver Stevon Williams (above) told a local news station. He believes inhaling fentanyl smoke made him sick.
“At the levels observed in this study, there is no evidence of acute medical conditions resulting from passive exposure to fentanyl or methamphetamine (such as from touching contaminated surfaces or inhaling secondhand smoke),” the UW news release said .
Real?
On the UW campus, cigarette and e-cigarette smokers are considered so dangerous that they are banished to small, designated areas outside. But when it comes to secondhand meth and fentanyl smoke, are you perfectly safe on a crowded, poorly ventilated light rail train?
In reality, these researchers don’t know how dangerous it is to work on or ride public transportation. The final report notes that the study did not determine ‘long-term health effects associated with daily exposure to these substances.’
As a Seattle resident, I can’t say I’m surprised.
Frankly, drug use has become so common here that people rarely blink an eye when homeless addicts smoke or shoot in public, even when they are near women and children.
Meanwhile, Seattle is the only city in the state where it is legal to use hard drugs in public. Far-left councilor Teresa Mosqueda, best known for defending a man who threatened to kill police officers, has rejected a bill to criminalize drugs.
Citing the UW study, she said we should stop whining about the drug crisis because “there is no risk for the average person to be exposed to secondhand smoke.”
Progressive leaders running America’s major cities have wholeheartedly embraced a once-fringe method of responding to the drug epidemic. Instead of law enforcement and addiction treatment, they have chosen to hand out clean needles, booty-bumping kits to administer drugs rectally, and crack pipes.
They call this ‘harm reduction’.
It’s a deadly farce.
Look no further than the Emerald City, known for the Space Needle, hip coffee shops and of course meth and fentanyl, which is killing a historic number of locals.
Instead of law enforcement and addiction treatment, they have chosen to hand out clean needles, booty-bumping kits to administer drugs rectally, and crack pipes. (Above) A homeless man, 24, injects methamphetamine into his arm on March 13, 2022 in Seattle
Radical left lawmakers, health officials and activists long ago introduced needle exchanges as a means to slow a raging HIV/AIDS epidemic, exacerbated by addicts sharing filthy drug paraphernalia.
When the ideologues came to power and no one was looking, they pushed the boundaries. Before the public realized it, officials in cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco were debating who would be the first to open a heroin injection site (dubiously titled “safe consumption sites”).
The New York City Department of Health began telling addicts, “Don’t be ashamed that you’re using, be confident that you’re using safely.” The Biden administration included $30 million in grants for harm reduction programs in the 2021 coronavirus relief package.
When Republicans were outraged by the distribution of federally funded stems for crack pipes, they were accused of spreading a “racist trope.”
The radical left will shame those who “stigmatize” addicts, arguing that they are the ones who “meet the addicts where they are.”
But a taxpayer-supported Seattle health care worker bluntly explained harm reduction to city council members in May: “I know it can be a little bit controversial, but one of the key tenets of harm reduction, I see, is that we want to be able to facilitate and defend the autonomy of people who use drugs.’
How brave! But while they feign compassion, people die and cities are destroyed.
In 2022, King County/Seattle recorded a whopping 1,000 fatal drug overdoses, an all-time high driven by fentanyl flowing into the area thanks to Biden’s porous border.
A taxpayer-supported Seattle health care worker bluntly explained harm reduction to city council members in May: “I know it can be a little bit controversial, but one of the key tenets of harm reduction, I see, is that we want to be able and advocate for the autonomy of people who use drugs.’ (Above) Homeless camp near downtown Seattle
Seattle is the only city in the state where it is legal to use hard drugs in public. Far-left councilor Teresa Mosqueda, best known for defending a man who threatened to kill police officers, has rejected a bill to criminalize drugs. (Above) Seattle City Council, Mosqueda, 8th from left
By the end of September (or possibly by the time you finish this article), the county will break that record. Nationally, driven by the expanding harm reduction movement, we have historically lost 109,680 lives to drugs.
The biggest reason why harm reduction doesn’t work is that it was never designed to break addicts.
San Francisco closed their $22 million safe consumption site in 2022, less than a year after opening. In the first four months after the center opened, it had referred only 18 of its more than 23,000 “visitors” to drug treatment programs. Meanwhile, the neighborhoods of the Tenderloin District had been transformed into a fetid open-air drug market.
These policies not only kill addicts, but also destroy cities.
In early September, commuters arrived at a Seattle bus stop to find two men dead on the benches.
“I don’t think shock is even the right word right now,” one woman said. “It’s absolutely numbing. I don’t know how a city like Seattle got to be like this.”
Actually, we do know.
It’s long past time for progressives to wake up and smell the meth and fentanyl.