Join us for our telephone town hall on February 24, 2016 from 6:15-7:15 p.m.
Under the telephone town hall format, thousands of constituents will receive automatically generated telephone calls to their homes in the 34th Legislative District around 6:15 p.m. To ask a question, all you have to do is press *3 on your phone at any time during the call, or you may just want to listen to the live conversation. If you don’t get the call but want to participate, please dial the toll-free number 877-229-8493 and enter the code 18646 when prompted.
It’s time to treat substance abuse like a disease
Like too many in our community, we have known someone who has been impacted by a substance use disorder. Hooked on drugs or fighting with alcoholism, these people are family members, friends, community members – all who have fallen into a cycle that is hard to escape. One of the reasons it’s hard to recover is because the state treats these patients differently.
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If you’re suffering from a mental health disorder or crisis and are an immediate danger to yourself or others, you can be involuntarily committed and required to receive treatment. This is a commonsense approach to an immediate problem and it saves lives. But if you’re addicted to drugs or alcohol, the same standards don’t apply. |
Eileen introduced legislation (Ricky’s Law, HB 1713) that would align our values and treat those suffering from addiction and those suffering from mental health disorders the same. If someone is a danger to themselves or others, it shouldn’t matter why. The law should treat them the same and allow medical professionals to get them the care they need. The bill passed the House but still has to be approved by the Senate before heading to the governor.
Let’s put safety first
You get home from a long day at work and toss your feet up on the couch to relax.
What you might not know is that the majority of couches, or any furniture with foam padding, contain toxic flame retardants. Check your sofa’s safety below.
Even more frightening? Those same chemicals are present in many children’s items.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Fire safety standards can be met without using toxic flame retardants that put our firefighters and our children at risk.
HB 2545, the Toxic-Free Kids and Families Act would ban five dangerous flame retardant chemicals. Additionally, the bill would give the Washington Department of Health the power to ban dangerous flame retardants they find in the future.
Giving the Department of Health authority to ban these dangerous chemicals will deter manufacturers from replacing the banned chemicals with even more toxic ones.
Again and again, the House has passed legislation to get us off the toxic treadmill, but year after year the Senate has failed to take action.
This week the House passed HB 2545 with bipartisan support. We need the Senate to take action because no one should have to put their feet up on a toxic couch.