KGMI News

SEATTLE, WASH. – Seattle and King County are moving ahead with plans to open two safe-injection sites for drug users.

A panel of public-health experts recommended the sites to reduce overdose deaths.

King County Sheriff John Urquhart is on the panel and supports the plan.

Urquhart says the war on drugs has been a failure and something different has to be done.

Republican State Senator Mark Miloscia is trying to stop the sites from being set up.

He recently visited a safe injection site in Canada, which supporters credit for saving many lives.

Miloscia disputed that claim in a Seattle Times interview.

“Every time you inject you have a chance of dying,” Miloscia says.

Miloscia does favor giving police and medics more access to the overdose-reversing drug naloxone.

He says government cannot condone heroin use.