The Seattle City Council is taking heat from residents after it rejected a bill that would have allowed the city attorney to prosecute public drug use and possession.
Seattle radio host Jason Rantz is among many of The Emerald City's residents lambasting the city council's unwillingness to crack down on recreational drug use as addiction and homelessness epidemics sweep the area.
"My position on this is actually the position of Seattleites, which is about 70% of the folks here," Rantz said Thursday on "Fox & Friends First."
"Obviously, we have gone way too far in one direction, in this permissive behavior where we basically allow homeless addicts to smoke fentanyl and do whatever it is they want to do all across Seattle, so everyone has pretty much been saying the same thing.
"We don't want to round everyone up and just put them in jail. We do want to get them into treatment, but sometimes law enforcement plays a role in that."
The ordinance ultimately failed after council members voted 5-4 to prevent it from taking effect.
The measure would have effectively followed in the footsteps of Washington State's new drug possession law which, effective next month, makes drug use and knowing possession a gross misdemeanor punishable by up to 180 days in jail, a $1,000 fine, or both. Repeat offenders can be sentenced to a year in jail, though prosecutors are encouraged to divert defendants to treatment or similar recovery services.
Co-host Todd Piro said the city council's move makes Seattle a "free-for-all" for addicts, a problem Rantz slammed as a "slap in the face to all residents."
The Downtown Seattle Association blasted the move in a written statement released to local media: "At a critical time for the recovery of downtown, the use of dangerous drugs in our public spaces is a significant contributing factor to residents, employees, families and visitors feeling unsafe exploring our city or returning to the office. In fact, in a poll we commissioned late last month, the full results of which will be released later this week, a full 77% of voters agreed with the statement ‘Seattle’s hands-off approach to people using illegal drugs in public is contributing to rampant street crime and is making it much harder for downtown to recover’, 63% of those strongly agreed."
Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison also criticized the outcome, saying, "Seattle will now be the only municipality in the State of Washington where it is legal to use hard drugs in public. That means drug use on public transit and in our neighborhoods will continue unimpeded.
"Sadly because of the obstruction of these city council members, overdose deaths are likely to continue to climb."
Rantz, following Davison's sentiment, argued the outcome helps no one other than the "homeless industrial complex members," who financially benefit from the homeless crisis.
"I know sometimes, when I say that, it feels like there's some nefarious intent," he continued. "I don't know if everyone who's out there who's trying to ‘help the homeless’ actually feel this way, but, at the end of the day, the end result is exactly the same.
"They're keeping people out on the streets who are in desperate need of help and ultimately, inevitably, they're going to die."
Cities nationwide have been struggling to curb overdose deaths and mitigate upticks in homelessness and possession, including in New York City, which recently unveiled public health vending machines containing free drug paraphernalia and anti-overdose meds, namely Narcan.
Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan touted the initiative, which follows examples previously set in places like Europe, Australia and other parts of the U.S., as an "innovative way" to help reverse opioid death trends that have reached record levels.
The machines are additionally equipped with condoms, tampons, nicotine gum, "Safer Sniffing" kits, and first-aid packages, according to The New York Post.
Fox News' Hannah Ray Lambert and Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.
