Save Our Sequim is a non-profit organization that is trying to stop the regional methadone addiction facility that is proposed for a 20 acre parcel of land in the City of Sequim near the Costco store. This is the hot issue of the day in Sequim right now, and many concerned citizens feel the methadone addiction facility will not be good for Sequim. Here’s a video from Save Our Sequim.
There are people on both sides of this issue, and as you can imagine, it is a hot button issue. If you are a retiree considering Sequim, I thought you might like to know about what is happening in Sequim, and at least get a little information on this issue.
Save Our Sequim has a Facebook Page and a website [SaveOurSequim.org] where you can learn more. This quote from their website explains the issue:
“On May 6, 2019, Sequim was rocked by an article by the Peninsula Daily News titled “State approves funds for Peninsula-wide behavioral health facility, Center to be operated by Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, Olympic Medical Center, and Jefferson Healthcare” (Peninsula Daily News). Without prior vote or approval and so much as a notification, the citizens of Sequim are now finding out that big businesses have already quietly rezoned, purchased and initiated hiring for a 25,000 sq foot Medication-Assisted Treatment Facility (later retitled “healing center”) on 20 acres that will transform our community, directly on our main street, in the center of our town.”
[The video embedded here is no longer on Youtube.]
One question among locals is whether this facility, which apparently will bus drug addicts to Sequim from Seattle, will increase crime, the homeless population, and reduce property values. There is also a serious and complex question about whether the facility’s services actually help drug addicts recover on a long term basis. Seattle’s programs have been a major disaster as seen in the viral Youtube video Seattle is Dying watched by over 4.7 million.
These are very difficult issues, but they do effect Sequim and will effect retirees moving to Sequim in a number of ways, none of which appear to be positive. Real estate values in and around such a a facility are almost guaranteed to go down.
You’re welcome to leave comments if you have an opinion or experience on this subject.
The Sequim Methadone Clinic Survey Has Ended
Survey Results May Be Seen at: Sequim Methadone Clinic Survey Results
Last Updated on August 23, 2019 by Chuck Marunde
You all are a bunch of uneducated people. You have no idea what your talking about when you say addicts will come from Seattle to Sequim to take advantage of our methadone clinic. Seattle residents already have access to multiple clinics in their area so why would they come here??
Methadone saves lives. It could be someone you love that needs that last resort methadone clinic to save their life, so quit being so stuck up rude to people who struggle with addiction.
If they are going to the clinic, its their decision to do so and to better their lives. Quit looking down on people, instead how about giving them encouragement and a helping hand up?!!
Ashley, you are obviously angry and your comment is full of misstatements. Your first personal attack stating that the others who left comments on this article are “a bunch of uneducated people” is surely wrong. Apparently you don’t know that Sequim has one of the highest levels of education and professional careers of any similar age group across America. We’re very fortunate that way.
Second, our age group knows how to do research and how to objectively analyze the subject of building a Methadone Clinic in a rural town like Sequim. I have talked to some of the people in Sequim who object to the clinic, and guess what? Some are retired doctors who worked at failed Methadone Clinics where they came from. Some are nurses who have said there’s no question such clinics do not work in real life. Other retirees who have backgrounds in law enforcement have said while no one talks about it, they have seen increasing homeless problems and increased drug use on the streets and increased crimes in communities where such clinics are built.
Third, Seattle clinics are over capacity, and apparently you didn’t do your research on that either. They need new clinics, and while no one can guarantee patients will be brought here from other towns like Seattle, you surely can’t guarantee they won’t.
Fourth, you say “methadone saves lives.” Au contraire my friend. Meth kills, and it has killed far too many in this country.
Fifth, and lastly, no one here is looking down at anyone with a meth addiction. You made that up. I know hundreds of Sequim residents, and they are some of the most compassionate and generous people I have met in my life. But they’re smart, too, and they believe that helping someone with an addiction is not simply a matter of giving them free meth in a clinic where the vast majority fail according to doctors who know. Unlike much of America’s entitlement thinkers, this generation believes in personal responsibility, hard work, and accountability. That does not preclude help when someone needs it, but this new philosophy of the millennial generation that wants to give people free drugs, free housing, build homeless camps and give them free needles to shoot up in “safe zones,” and open up America’s borders to let in any criminals or human trafficers without any accountability, is destroying America.
My friend, it is not the good retirees of Sequim who are uneducated and stuck up–it is you.
Your are ill-informed to the point of spreading disinformation. It is not a Methadone Addiction clinic. It is a medical facility that will treat opioid use disorder patients with state-of-the-art medication assisted treatment combined with the range of services that are necessary for patients to get treatment (for example, child care and transportation from the patient’s home to the campus and back to their home), recover from the relationship fall-outs that resulted from their addiction (individual and group counseling), and medical treatment for physical issues (including dental) that went untreated because of the dysfunction associated with the addiction. THERE ARE NOT PLANS TO BUS PEOPLE FROM SEATTLE TO SEQUIM FOR TREATMENT. If you can’t get that fact straight, I would caution anyone who wants to use you for real estate business to run as fast as you can in the opposite direction. This man is ill-informed at best, and dishonest at worst.
I disagree Karen, as do the vast majority of people in and around Sequim. We all think your wrong. The difference is we aren’t angry at anyone who disagrees.
The Peninsula Daily News Commentary – Page A7 – Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Two excellent articles summarizing against the medication-assisted treatment clinic in Sequim.
Sequim’s tax-paying retirees and working families wish all the best to others in need of medical assistance and request consideration for relocation of this type of facility.
We need a hospital in Sequim to serve the needs of Sequim residents, not an addiction center for out of town addicts. We are an aging population that will almost certainly need medical help, based on the problems of aging. Addictions are usually self inflicted by and to people, who are very self centered with little thought for family and community.
We don’t need or want a Regional Methadone Addiction facility.
It is not a Regional Metadone Addiction facility. It provides medication assisted treatment for opioid addiction, which is considered state-of-the-art treatment for opioid addiction. Many Sequim residents have been affected by the addiction epidemic, perhaps even someone living next door to you. You are woefully uneducated and ignorant. Please educate yourself rather than vilify and stigmatize people. If you want a hospital, get off your duff and find out what you can do to advocate and support building a hospital.
The last thing we need to have is Seattle’s homeless, drug addicted problems…it has increased and continues to increase on the present officials leadership, lack of taking control and passing regulations that Seattle needs to correct their own problems…not kicking it down the road to Sequim.
Please send a map of the proposed project in relation to Sequim Ave and Costco
Answer: We don’t send maps by snail mail anymore, but you can use Google Satellite map online to see the area, which is on the southeast corner of the Costco building in that big field you can see on the map.