Spokane County and Spokane city officials met in a joint session to address a worsening opioid and stimulant overdose problem, hear new law-enforcement and medical-examiner data, and describe joint short- and long-term investments in treatment, overdose response and prosecutorial resources.

The meeting brought together county commissioners and city council members with Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown; Spokane Police Department leadership; the Spokane County sheriff; the county chief medical examiner; and representatives of regional drug-task forces and behavioral-health providers to review recent trends and planned actions.

Why it matters: officials said overdose calls, naloxone deployments and drug seizures have increased sharply, and fentanyl is driving most fatal overdoses. They described a two-track strategy of using outreach and treatment to engage people first while bolstering mid- and upper-level narcotics investigations to disrupt supply.

"The opioid epidemic is a crisis that requires a unified response," Mayor Lisa Brown said, framing the meeting as a regional effort. Chief Hall of the Spokane Police Department described a multi-pronged policing strategy that privileges "engagement first, enforcement second" while also establishing a new Tactical Operations Unit, "TACOPS," to target mid- and high-level traffickers.

Sheriff (name not specified) summarized data compiled by the Raven Task Force and county analysts: "First responders dispatched to drug related calls have quadrupled in the last 3 years. Calls related to deploying naloxone have increased 5 fold during the same time period from 2022 to 2024," he said, and added that fentanyl-, methamphetamine- and cocaine-related overdose deaths have been trending up since mid‑2024.

Law enforcement and investigations

Chief Hall said the Spokane Police Department expanded a downtown pilot called Crisis Outreach Response and Engagement, and has continued the program through 2025 for further evaluation. Hall described a downtown crime-control plan that increases visible foot and bicycle patrols, identifies "high-risk, high consumer" individuals for coordinated service referrals, and seeks to follow narcotics supply chains beyond street-level "subsistence" dealers to mid-level traffickers.

Hall described recent investigative results: an operation tied to the Ridpath Apartments produced seizures the chief summarized as about $10,000 in cash, roughly a kilogram of methamphetamine, 453 grams of cocaine, 50 grams of powdered fentanyl and about 10,000 fentanyl pills; he said the case "is going to result in multiple felony charges." The department also began a state-sponsored "leave behind" program to give naloxone kits and a short instruction to high-risk contacts; Hall said the first shipment of naloxone was expected imminently.

The sheriff's presentation added regional context from the Raven Task Force and HIDA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area) reports: officials said Spokane County has become a distribution node for substances traveling north on Interstate 5 and east along I-90 from the Tri-Cities corridor, and that seizures in 2024 included more powdered fentanyl compared with quarters earlier in the year. HIDA data cited in the meeting put 2024 seizures at over 200,000 fentanyl tablets and about 5.39 kilograms of fentanyl powder with an average measured purity near 80 percent.

Public-health and medical examiner findings

Vina Singh, chief medical examiner for Spokane County, gave preliminary fatal‑overdose counts and characteristics drawn from the county medical-examiner caseload. "In 2024, we had 352 deaths that were related, either where drugs were the main cause of death or they contributed to death," Singh said, and noted the county count reflected more than a 300 percent increase in overdose deaths since 2018. She said about 80 percent of 2024 fatal overdoses involved fentanyl and that many fatalities are mixed stimulant‑opioid deaths (fentanyl with methamphetamine or cocaine).

Singh also described demographics and settings: overdose deaths span adult age groups, are predominantly male in the medicolegal cohort, and more than half occurred in a residence or hotel rather than outdoors. She said bystanders were present in roughly 60 percent of scenes, and that naloxone is effective where present and used.

Treatment, sobering and settlement‑fund investments

City and county officials described how opioid-settlement dollars and other regional funding have been allocated to expand immediate treatment access, stabilization services and longer-term capacity.

Justin (last name not specified), a county staffer working with regional behavioral-health administration, outlined the regional distribution under a "One Washington" memorandum-of-understanding and said the region expects roughly $40 million over the life of the settlements (amounts subject to final determinations). He said the county and its behavioral-health administrative service organization have directed tens of millions of dollars toward crisis and inpatient services and have prioritized sustainability.

The city of Spokane has committed $500,000 to expand its CARES team clinician staffing and another $500,000 to a "high utilizer" contract with Consistent Care, which provides intensive case management for people who repeatedly cycle through emergency services. County and city leaders said those programs are already connecting individuals into care and that the county provided funds that helped secure the STARS (Spokane Treatment and Recovery Services) facility and expand same‑day medication-assisted-treatment (MAT) intake pathways.

Both jurisdictions proposed short-term scale-up and longer-term capital investment: officials said STARS could expand immediate sobering capacity and add recliner beds to reach up to 24 sobering spaces, and that the county is pursuing a regional crisis-relief and sobering center (a co-located facility for walk-ins and first‑responder dropoffs) with a target opening in spring 2027 if funding and approvals proceed.

"Since its inception in December when we put that in place, we've seen almost 350 people," Justin said of a 23‑hour sobering/triage service the county funded, noting about 80 percent of those clients were referred into longer-term care.

Prevention and data gaps

Officials discussed prevention for youth and acknowledged gaps in data about youth overdoses. Chief Hall and other speakers said fatal overdoses have been concentrated among adults (roughly ages 30–60), and the sheriff said the Raven Task Force and the county will try to improve youth data collection in 2025. The county and HIDA partners also said some school-based prevention curricula (for example, evidence-based resilience/skills programs) have shown promise in other counties and may be considered for regional adoption.

Next steps and limits

Speakers repeatedly framed the approach as multi‑agency and multi‑strategy: outreach and deflection at the street level, expanded immediate treatment and sobering capacity, targeted mid/high‑level trafficking investigations, and better data sharing among partners. Several officials noted staffing and investigative capacity as constraints for sustained multi‑jurisdictional narcotics investigations, and the sheriff and chiefs said their work depends on federal and state cooperation.

The meeting closed without formal votes or ordinance actions; officials moved to an executive session for legal discussion and said no final actions were expected at that time. County and city staff said they will continue joint planning and pursue state and federal capital funding for the proposed crisis‑relief center.

Ending

Officials said the region will continue coordinating enforcement, treatment and prevention work; short-term expansions at STARS and additional sobering capacity were described as feasible within months if contracts are amended, while the crisis‑relief center remains a multi‑year capital project with a tentative target of spring 2027.

(Reporting draws on presentations and remarks at a joint Spokane County — Spokane City session. No formal votes were taken at the joint session.)