Rep. Jim Walsh, R -Aberdeen, has introduced legislation to strengthen Washington’s Involuntary Treatment Act, expanding timelines for evaluation and treatment of people suffering from severe addiction and behavioral health disorders.

House Bill 2383 updates multiple sections of the Involuntary Treatment Act (ITA) to extend the maximum initial detention period and adjust subsequent court-reviewed timelines. Walsh says the bill is designed to address the realities of chronic drug addiction, particularly fentanyl use, which often leaves individuals unable to stabilize within the state’s current short-term framework.

“If we’re going to be serious about doing something about mental health, behavioral health, and drug addiction in Washington, we need to restructure our state’s Involuntary Treatment Act,” Walsh said. “This is the law that allows a short-term 120-hour hold when someone in the depths of addiction or mental illness has been arrested but isn’t coherent enough to understand what they’ve done.”

Walsh says the current timelines often lead to premature release, even when a person remains impaired.

“The purpose of the initial hold is to give the arrested person enough time while in custody to ‘dry out,’ sober up enough or reach enough clarity to understand that they’ve been charged with a crime,” Walsh said. “The problem is, with the chronic use of drugs like fentanyl, the current time period isn’t sufficient time for a person to sober up enough to understand.”

Walsh says his proposal reflects feedback from the professionals who see what severe addiction looks like every day.

“I’ve spoken with law enforcement agents and mental health care providers around the 19th Legislative District and the whole state, who tell me the current hold just enables a ‘revolving door’ through which addicts and people with mental illness cycle through our jails. Never getting better,” he said.

Walsh hopes to correct that with his bill.

“House Bill 2383 extends the ITA hold period to a maximum of seven days. Frontline experts I’ve talked with say this will give most troubled people enough time to clear their minds and understand what’s happening,” Walsh explained. “The bill also allows for an additional period of 21 days, upon court review, for a person to remain in custody — with the goal of that person agreeing to longer-term treatment instead of serious prison time.”

Walsh acknowledges some will have concerns with this approach to the crisis.

“I realize that HB 2383 also raises some civil-liberties issues. I welcome that discussion and debate,” Walsh said. “But Washington faces a drug and mental health crisis right now. The time for platitudes and talk is over. Washington needs to take action. HB 2383 does that.”