Panel at Olympia screening urges more treatment, mobile clinics and school education in response to fentanyl surge

TVW hosted a screening and panel at Olympia High School that combined a family’s account of a fentanyl death with interviews of federal and state officials and a live panel on expanding treatment and prevention.

The evening opened with a video featuring Maria Petty, who described finding her son Lucas unresponsive and attempting rescue measures including two doses of naloxone before paramedics pronounced him dead. The program noted Gov. Jay Inslee signed the Lucas Petty Act on March 19, 2024, requiring opioid awareness to be added to health and physical-education courses.

Panel moderator Jennifer Huntley introduced state and local leaders including Sen. John Braun; Rep. Lauren Davis; Thurston County Sheriff Derrick Sanders; and Sean Soth, director of health integration and innovation at Evergreen Treatment Services. The discussion centered on three policy levers: expand access to medication for opioid use disorder, scale outreach and recovery supports, and improve prevention and school-based education.

Sen. Braun said the crisis is "tragic" and urged prioritizing funding to connect people to services, saying the state has the budget capacity to invest but must set priorities. "We have a long way to go," he said, arguing criminal-legal tools can sometimes be part of getting people into treatment while emphasizing the need for community treatment capacity.

Rep. Lauren Davis, who has professional experience in addiction recovery, said Washington knows how to save lives but lacks the investments to do so statewide. She said naloxone should "be everywhere," and that medication first—methadone or buprenorphine—must be broadly available. Davis pointed to mobile medication units, emergency-department initiation programs, and recovery navigation as practical ways to reach people in counties that lack treatment clinics.

Sheriff Sanders described operational strain in Thurston County: multiple fatal overdoses inside the jail, staffing shortages on narcotics teams and the challenge of balancing public-safety demands with compassion for people in addiction. He said his office has funded a fentanyl-detecting canine and distributes naloxone to people leaving custody, and called mobile treatment vans part of the future.

Sean Soth described Evergreen Treatment Services’ mobile methadone clinic in Shelton, which by mid-February was seeing about 75 patients Monday–Saturday. He said the service improves retention and access for people who otherwise face transportation or stigma barriers but is chronically underfunded and short-staffed.

The panel and audience also discussed prevention and schools. The screening highlighted the Lucas Petty Act, which adds opioid awareness to school curricula; audience members and lawmakers debated how to update local school naloxone policies and expand school-based behavioral health services.

Local officials pressed the state on funding. County Commissioner Carolina Mejia said her county had to add roughly $700,000 to process overdose autopsies and asked why state funds were not better reaching local BHOs and direct providers. Lawmakers responded that while state funding for behavioral health has grown in recent budgets, implementation, staffing and local capacity remain obstacles.

Audience members and public commenters highlighted the role of trauma and social determinants in addiction and urged structural prevention—early childhood supports, housing and employment—alongside treatment. Speakers described peer outreach programs and civil-commitment statutes (often called Ricky’s Law) as underused tools that could be better deployed with hospital and community cooperation.

The panel concluded with a consensus that no single solution will solve the crisis: treatment expansion, harm-reduction services, prevention in schools and improved local-state funding alignment are all needed. "Let's find the pathways to get there together," TVW's Renee Radcliffe Sinclair said in closing.

Next steps described at the event included continued advocacy for mobile medication services, expanding recovery supports (housing, employment, peer services) and urging local school boards to update naloxone and prevention policies in the coming school year.