Washington Advocates We Want to Hear from You!

It’s hard to believe it’s already September. I hope this finds you well and safe.

We had some great success during the short 2022 session and are cautiously optimistic about the 2023 session. The short 60 day session was even busier than usual, as the legislature worked to address numerous issues facing our state.

As a refresher, our priority tobacco control policies didn’t progress as far as we had hoped, however we were still able to make some great progress!

Two areas we’d like to highlight:

• $5 million budget appropriation to the Department of Health for tobacco prevention, treatment, and cessation programs. Washington once had one of the best funded programs in the country but that hasn’t been the case for many years since the “great recession of 2010.” While this is just a one-time appropriation, we are hopeful this initial investment can help rebuild the systems that help keep people from starting use of nicotine products and helping those who are ready to quit.
  
  
• Passage of SB5821. This legislation will help us better understand our state’s systems of care for cardiac and stroke patients. This is an important step for us to address disparities and gaps in resources so that we can truly improve cardiac and stroke patient outcomes.

The 2023 Legislative session will be here before we know it.  We are still assessing what will be our top issues but as we do our planning, we would like to hear from you about the issues you care about and how you would like to be involved. Please take a few minutes and answer our short (only 8 question) survey.

If you have any questions please reach out and we’d be happy to chat. Thank you for your support and we look forward to working together to build a healthier Washington.