Opioid Response Plan endorsed by Thurston County Board of Health

The Thurston County Board of Health unanimously passed an opioid response plan covering 2026-27.

The vote extends a crisis declaration first enacted in 2018 amid skyrocketing overdose deaths. 

The board addressed the plan at a meeting on Jan. 13, after staff presented opioid response data and program highlights in 2025. 

Katie Strozyk, the Opioid and Overdose Response Program Manager at Thurston County Public Health and Social Services Department (PHSS), told the board drug trends have stabilized enough to warrant a two-year timeline after years of annual updates driven by the proliferation of fentanyl use. 

"We have kind of stabilized out as a community now where we're seeing the same strategies be used and continually implemented," Strozyk said. "We're not needing as many new and innovative changes that we haven't started to explore in the past." 

She added the plan retains language, such as "harm reduction," despite federal rollbacks on similar terminology. 

"Even though the federal level has become a little bit more contentious around the work that we do, we haven't changed our plan or our wording in order to align with anything that's been scaled back at the federal level," Strozyk said. "We haven't removed terms like harm reduction or anything." 

In June 2018, the board passed Resolution H-1-2018 declaring the opioid epidemic a public health crisis. The Thurston County Opioid Response Task Force adopted a formal response plan in July 2019. 

Four work groups covering prevention, pregnant and parenting, treatment and overdose now meet monthly or every other month to develop objectives for each strategy. The task force will convene quarterly beginning in April. 

Last year, PHSS recorded 55 overdose response training sessiosn, reaching more than 500 people at churches, schools, businesses and youth groups. 

Staff was on hand at 18 community and school events with on-demand instruction on overdose reversal, medication disposal, locking up medications and access to treatment. 

"We do trainings for overdose response to literally anyone and everyone in the community," Strozyk said. "We have an online request form. We do nonprofits, state agencies, businesses. We've done birthday parties at backyards." 

Meanwhile, the Syringe Services Program on Franklin Street in downtown Olympia handed out 3,644 naloxone kits in 2025. Participants self-reported 270 overdose reversals at the time of pickup. 

Strozyk noted the actual number is likely far higher since the count only reflects individuals who self-disclose and excludes first responder administrations. 

Board member Clark Gilman, representing the City of Olympia, asked Strozyk about drug use patterns. 

“As we saw our drug supply really shift from heroin to fentanyl, we also saw a kind of a swap in method of use as well," Strozyk said.

"We used to see a lot of folks who were injecting heroin who swapped to just be smoking fentanyl instead. There was kind of some misconception that smoking is going to be safer than injecting and that you'd be less likely to overdose, which we know now is definitely not true." 

Communication campaigns 

In terms of outreach, state funding from the Washington State Department of Health bankrolled communication campaigns required to center on overdose prevention, response and naloxone access. 

The county ran digital billboards along Highway 101 North and South, Highway 99 and Highway 507 using the state's Friends for Life campaign. 

Movie advertisements also screened before PG-13 and above films at multiple theaters and on online video streaming services. 

"If you went to the movies last year and you saw the little ad before the trailers about naloxone, we utilized the Friends for Life PSA on naloxone," Strozyk said.

"The movie theater kind of went silent during that (time), but not in a bad way, but just in a way where folks were actually engaged and looking and listening to the PSA." 

Localized campaigns featured artwork by a local artist with lived experience depicting a naloxone box with a flower sprouting from it. 

Ads that appeared at Stevens Field in Olympia and Capital Mall, featured a QR code linking to the Friends for Life website. 

In addition, staff developed a guide for people moving from unsheltered homelessness into shelter beds or single-occupancy residencies. Strozyk said the risk of fatal overdose drastically increases during housing transitions. 

A full-spectrum reproductive care guide covering birth control, STI testing, gender-affirming care and abortion access was updated and distributed widely. 

"It's been one of our most popular resources that we've created from our team," Strozyk said. "We found that there really wasn't something that was consolidated and easy to understand about all of these topics, especially as we've seen a lot of them become kind of controversial politically." 

Staff also handed out 600 locking medication storage bags and boxes through community partners and outreach events. 

Emergency care

As for emergency response, Thurston County Board of County Commissioners Vice Chair and health board member Wayne Fournier said the county's post-nonfatal overdose follow-up program through Medic One rivals programs in Seattle and King County. 

Strozyk said Medic One now uses leave-behind naloxone and provides in-field buprenorphine induction. 

Gilman commended the anti-stigma work. 

"I am so proud that you and your team continue to be pushing against stigma and offering best advice for folks who are actively using," Gilman said. "I think that's just such a gift to the community." 

Looking ahead, Strozyk said the county has managed to stabilize and begin decreasing fatal overdose rates over the past two years. 

"We were seeing really drastically rising fatal overdoses for a few years, and so the last two years now, we've been able to stabilize those, as well as start to decrease them, which is something that the state really hasn't even seen yet," she said. 

The Thurston County Opioid Response Task Force will meet quarterly beginning in April. Work groups will develop objectives for each of the plan's 28 strategies in the coming months.