Everett, WA Public Health Rules: Syringe Disposal (2026)

35 bans selling or giving drug paraphernalia to another person citywide. 055(A) makes it a civil infraction, not a misdemeanor, to sell, give, or permit to be sold or given any drug paraphernalia in any form, punishable by a fine of not more than $500. Subsection (B) defines drug paraphernalia broadly as all equipment, products and materials of any kind used, intended for use, or designed for use in planting, cultivating, manufacturing, packaging, injecting, ingesting or otherwise introducing a controlled substance other than marijuana into the human body, and lists examples aimed at cocaine use: pipes of metal, wood, acrylic, glass, stone, plastic or ceramic; water pipes; carburetion tubes and masks; miniature cocaine spoons and vials; chamber, carburetor, electric and air-driven pipes; and ice pipes or chillers.

Subsection (C) removes the agency defense: it is no defense that the person acted, or was believed to act, as agent or representative of another. Subsection (D), the operative harm-reduction carve-out, states plainly that nothing in subsection A prohibits legal distribution of injection syringe equipment through public health and community-based HIV prevention programs, and pharmacies. That means Snohomish County public health outreach sites, HIV-prevention programs, and licensed pharmacies can distribute clean syringes in Everett without exposing staff or clients to the $500 civil infraction that otherwise applies to paraphernalia sales.

The chapter traces to Ordinance 2318-98 (1998), was amended by Ordinance 2622-02 (2002), and was last amended by Ordinance 3310-13 § 13 (2013), which set the current civil-infraction penalty structure in place of the prior misdemeanor scheme.