When a young woman was killed in a crash on the north end last December, she was the third islander to die on Vashon in slightly more than a year while driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

A King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) report released last week indicates that at the time of her death on Dec. 29, Molly Adams had a blood alcohol level of .18 — more than double the legal limit — as well as marijuana and methamphetamine in her system. Her death follows fatal crashes in December 2014 and May 2015. In both cases, the drivers had blood alcohol levels nearly three times the legal limit, and one of the drivers also had marijuana in his system, according to official reports.

KCSO’s Ted Boe, Vashon’s precinct captain, addressed this situation at a public meeting in January. He noted that from 2009 through 2012, Vashon had no fatal crashes from any cause, and in 2013, there was one, unrelated to alcohol. In 2014 and 2015, however, five fatal crashes occurred, with the last three due to drivers who were impaired.

“Is it a trend?” he told those gathered. “Is it bad luck? I honestly don’t know.”

In an interview last week, Boe said the deputies who serve Vashon have stepped up enforcement efforts in a range of areas, including speeding and impaired driving — changes that were made in response to concerns raised at the January meeting.

“We have asked the officers to be diligent,” he added.

In the first quarter of this year, deputies have arrested five people for driving under the influence, compared with just two all of last year — a number that Boe readily acknowledged was too low.

Deputies have also stepped up their visibility in Vashon town, he said, and have made repeated visits to Vashon’s bars in part because of public concerns regarding bars over serving alcoholic beverages to patrons.

In an interview last week, Mikhail Carpenter, a spokesman for the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board, said that if customers appear drunk, businesses are not allowed to sell them additional drinks and must remove any alcoholic drinks the patrons already have. Typically, he added, it is enforcement personnel from the liquor and cannabis board, not police officers, who conduct oversight checks and enforce the law, but he noted such personnel are limited, and their location checks are often driven by complaints. Carpenter could not say how frequently enforcement personnel come to Vashon; The Beachcomber has filed a public information request to obtain that recent history.

While enforcement of current laws is vital, experts say it is only part of the picture of reducing or eliminating impaired driving, which is often connected to larger substance use or abuse issues.

“Clearly the island has a struggle on its hands,” Vashon Youth & Family Services (VYFS) Executive Director Kathleen Johnson said last week. “We have high rates of substance use particularly in youth and young adults.”

Johnson pointed to the recent fatalities as examples of why the island needs substance abuse treatment options, and she noted that she continues to look for funding to bring back VYFS’ addiction treatment program, which ended in 2014. She added while that program no longer exists, the agency offers counseling for people working on sobriety and for mental health concerns.

When addressing impaired driving, some experts, incuding KCSO’s Boe, say it is important that several facets of a community work together,

“Media, schools, social services, law enforcement, fire departments, families, etc. should all be sending a consistent message that risky driving behaviors are not acceptable,” he said in an email.

Efforts to see how that might be happening on Vashon indicate success in some areas and room for growth in others.

Vashon Island Fire & Rescue (VIFR) Chief Hank Lipe noted that following Vashon’s cluster of suicides a few years ago, there was a push for greater mental health services, but such a response has not been forthcoming in this situation.

“We do not have that for alcohol or marijuana consumption and driving,” he said. “I do not see it anyway.”

He noted impaired-driving conversations are especially important for young people, and he encouraged families to talk about the issue.

“Parents have to have the conversation and embrace it,” he added.

Additionally, he said it is important that schools, which have a captive audience, address the issue.

“Once they are adults, you lose them, but hopefully the education sticks,” he added.

He noted that earlier this year, for high school students, KCSO and VIFR proposed to the school district that they conduct a reenactment of a drunk driving crash and its aftermath. He noted it has been several years since such an exercise has taken place. The school district, however, declined to participate at this time.

In response, Vashon High School Principal Danny Rock said the district determined it could not take on such an event successfully this year, but he added he hopes to include elements of the exercise, along with a larger conversation and education, in the future.

“I do believe that the number one problem our community faces still is the problem of alcoholism and alcohol abuse and alcohol-related violence and alcohol-related deaths,” he said.

This year at the high school, Rock said, education about drunk driving occurs in the ninth-grade health class and in the context of a larger culture change the school is implementing over a three-year period. This year is the first year of that transition, and instead of focusing on punishment for negative behaviors, the school is moving toward educating what good behaviors are and rewarding students for those behaviors. Rock noted he has sent 130 letters home this year, recognizing students who have demonstrated qualities student leaders and staff have determined as central to being a good Pirate at school and in the wider community: respect, integrity, service and engagement.

Next year, he said, the school will include more direct conversation about alcohol and drugs and making healthy choices as part of increased communication about appropriate behaviors overall.

In just a few weeks, he added, the school will address the impaired driving issue directly around prom, with a special activity to promote safe choices,

The Vashon Alliance to Reduce Substance Abuse (VARSA) is also targeting young people and safe choices. Lisa Bruce, one of VARSA’s coordinators, said she believes that the community should discuss the issues of impaired driving, especially given the island’s recent losses.

“I think we need to talk about it. …We really need to push that education piece,” she said.

She added that she believes that conversation should include a wide range of participants, from the schools to the marijuana businesses on the island, including the medical marijuana dispensary and the Vashon Island Marijuana Entrepreneurs Alliance (VIMEA), an advocacy and trade organization for legal marijuana produced on Vashon.

Bruce noted that early this year, VARSA reached out to see if there are additional services KCSO could offer Vashon regarding youth alcohol and drug use.

As part of that effort, Boe said he attended a VARSA meeting with some island teens present, who told him they plan parties strategically so that they can escape without being apprehended, as the teens know the woods and trails better than the deputies and can easily get away. With that in mind, Boe said deputies are hoping to prevent more youth parties where alcohol and/or drugs might be present. VARSA sometimes knows of parties beforehand — this summer it intends to set up an anonymous tip line for such information — and will pass the information on to Boe. Deputies may then be able to intervene with the host of the party, explain the potential legal consequences to them and, ideally, prevent the party before it occurs.

Ending impaired driving may be complicated on and beyond Vashon, but last week, in discussing the recent tragedies, Chief Lipe noted the importance of individuals getting involved and potentially saving a life.

“When people are together and there is a situation and someone (who has been drinking) may need to get home, the people who are watching and recognizing the situation need to step in and come up with an alternative,” he said. “That is just watching after your friends.”