Court: Plan to ban injection sites properly kept off ballot

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) – The Washington Supreme Court has unanimously upheld a lower court’s decision to keep a measure banning safe injection sites in King County off the ballot.

The justices said the measure was beyond the scope of local initiative power and would interfere with King County’s budgeting authority.

A Seattle-King County task force studying ways to combat the opioid epidemic in 2016 recommended a supervised injection site pilot program that called for one site in the city and one in the county.

Opponents collected signatures for Initiative 27, which would have prevented public money from being used for safe injection sites and banned them in the county.

A King County Superior Court judge blocked it from appearing on the ballot next February, and the Supreme Court upheld that decision Thursday.

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This story has been corrected to show that I-27 was slated to appear on the ballot in February, not last month.