OLYMPIA… The 2023 legislative session has ended without the passage of a new state law on the possession of controlled substances, leaving it up to counties and cities to put their own drug-possession laws in place once the state law adopted in 2021 expires July 1. Senate Republican Leader John...

OLYMPIA… The state Senate voted more than five weeks ago to make possession of hard drugs a gross misdemeanor, and improve on the Legislature’s disastrous response to the state Supreme Court’s 2021 Blake decision. The state House of Representatives just passed a version of Senate Bill 5536 that would lower...