Seattle and King County have been a mess for quite some time. Years back, during COVID times, King County issued PSAs to residents to stay home and stay safe while telling drug addicts never to use alone.

It was truly bizarre. My son, who was wrestling in a mask, could not participate in a tourney in King County but drug addicts were encouraged to make a party out of smoking Fent or shooting up heroin. And speaking of shooting up, harm reduction groups advocated for clean needle exchanges. Now, a harm reduction group is passing around pamphlets addressed to addicts (and anyone who will pick one up) that it’s not their fault of their dog dies of an overdose.

The flyer was put together by the Indigenous Harm Reduction Team (IHRT) based out of Vancouver. From their website:

As Indigenous people we know what is relevant in our communities and one thing particularly relevant right now is that our friends, family, and community members are dying. As a result of colonization and on-going colonialism, Indigenous people are over-represented in the current overdose/drug poisoning crisis. However, we are under-represented as paid harm reduction service providers, harm reduction educators, and harm reduction support.

Access to harm reduction education is literally the difference between life and death for our people. Unfortunately, many Indigenous people have had only negative experiences with education. The intergenerational legacy of residential schools cannot be forgotten, nor can current educational experiences of racism. Education delivered from a Settler perspective centers Settler knowledge and ways of knowing, erases Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing, and perpetuates white supremacy. As Indigenous people we know colonialism is deeply entrenched in our society, taught to us and reinforced at every turn, and incredibly easy to replicate unknowingly through dominant cultural assumptions many times every day. In order for culturally safe learning environments for Indigenous people to be created, we must all do our best to fight colonial replications such as hierarchies, including the historical one of ‘white experts’ and ‘ignorant Indians’. We believe these replications to be unintentional but the impact is very real, especially in the current crisis.

As Indigenous people, we need to see our own identity and experiences reflected back from knowledge holders. We need education that is grounded in Indigenous community concepts and values, and taught in culturally relevant ways. Harm reduction intrinsically holds Indigenous people as the experts of our own lives. Telling our own stories, in safe places, and being able to reframe them is not only healing, it also saves lives.”-IHRT

No, they are not dying as a result of colonization and on-going deeply entrenched colonialism or racism. If it’s drug addiction we are talking about here, they are dying as a result of bad choices and ‘white experts’ who claim to champion the Indigenous tribes with useless land acknowledgements while encouraging policies that enable addicts to use drugs openly on the streets. I’m eyeballing Seattle Mayor, Katie Wilson and Washington State Governor, Bob Ferguson, directly, here. They are dying because our educational system is also dying and laden with “educators” from administration to in-classroom who support people like Katie Wilson and Bob Ferguson and their failing policies. But, we could split hairs all day long about this. Your dog could die because “dogs like to put stuff in their mouths” and IHRT wants you to know that it’s not your fault if your canine BFF kicks the bucket.

I live in shoreline so pretty much Seattle and I told my friend that if my dog dies from a walk due to fent dropped from the druggies that I’ll be going on a targeted spree.

— Mike Dixoncider (@mikehockDM) May 17, 2026

Agreed. If something happened to my beloved Chihuahua doggie daughter (a Mexican street dog rescue from Tijuana), my ride-or-die sidekick, I would be the first to go full-metal loca psycho.

They might lick the ground or discarded cooker/foil. There might be traces on our hands. They might sniff the ground and inhale a small piece. They might get some on their fur / paws and lick it off. They’re dogs. They put stuff in their mouth.”-IHRT

Cooker foil that was passed out to drug addicts, by “do-gooders”, mind you. The flyer also discusses the importance of administering Narcan. Living in the Seattle Metro myself, I have learned how to administer Narcan and I do carry some, should, God forbid, one of my loved ones come into contact or should I happen to be in a situation where it is needed. It’s a sad reality that we are living in and never did I think my glove box would contain Narcan, but it does. The even more tragic reality is this: one cannot walk their dog anymore without fear of their beloved four-legged family member coming into contact with Fentanyl. The streets in some areas are laden with trash and who knows where that piece of cooking foil blew in from.

Prosecutors in King County filed 46 felony drug-dealing charges in the first three months of 2026, with a significant share concentrated in a handful of Seattle neighborhoods. According to Public Health — Seattle and King County, there have been 191 deaths due to overdoses so far in 2026 through April.”–KOMO News

But hey, “home-free” druggie, if your dog dies,IHRT wants you to know, it’s not your fault. It’s the fault of colonialism and the military-industrial complex and the white man-all trying to bring you down. It’s Donald Trump’s fault, damnit. I can’t face-palm hard enough on this bull$hit.

It should be inhumane to own a pet if you can’t house, or provide for yourself.

— Recovered Souls (@RecoveredSouls) May 17, 2026

Another question this raises here is that of animal welfare. Where are all of the liberal, you-can-abort-a-baby-but-can’t-kill-an-animal activists on this one? Your city streets are so trashed by addicts that you may need to administer Narcan to your dog?! And, what about these addicts who have dogs? They cannot even get themselves out of their RVs and tents long enough to stand up straight from a hunched-over Fentanyl fold. How can they ever take care of those poor pups? Where is the outrage here? Largely silent in Seattle’s Socialist Katie Wilson Utopia. They walk on by the addict with the dog. Oh look-spring is here and the FIFA World Cup is coming to Beauuutifullll Seattle. Time to clean up the city and put the lipstick on the pig. Screw poor Fido in the throes of winter, though. Seattleites suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder and can’t be bothered.

It’s not compassionate to tell people in the throes of addiction or mental illness that they should continue on that self destructive path. Compassion is trying to help them onto a better path.

— BTC_Onboard (@BTC_Onboard) May 17, 2026

And, if they don’t want to be helped, that is on THEM. If a dog dies because of a human’s bad decisions, it IS the human’s FAULT. For now, King County residents? Be wary of where you walk with your four-legged family member. The addicts may not think they deserve better but their dogs, and yours, certainly do.

Photo Credit: Born in Baja, By Author