Ramp up the war on fentanyl
Last Sunday night, Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty received a call from a police officer who told him that someone within his jurisdiction had just died from a suspected drugrelated poisoning.
We use the word “poisoning” because it’s safe to assume that this death, like so many others lately, was the result of the illegal sale and use of a recreational drug unknown by the user to be laced with the synthetic or human- made opioid fentanyl.
“These calls are coming in far too frequently,” Dougherty says.
While the opioid crisis is difficult enough, the discovery of illicit drugs containing any random amount of fentanyl — a federally regulated narcotic that was developed as a pain management treatment for cancer and is 100 more times potent than morphine — has become a disturbing trend among street drug- related deaths in our communities.
One of the most striking cases occurred in late February inside a Commerce City apartment, where three women and two men likely died within minutes, according to local law enforcement, after ingesting cocaine that they did not know contained a toxic dose of fentanyl. To make matters worse, a 4- month- old baby was at the scene but was thankfully unharmed.
Nationwide, an estimated 105,752 people died from drug overdoses between September 2020 and September 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with two- thirds of those deaths involving synthetic or human made opioids, such as fentanyl. That’s a 50% increase over the previous two years.
We are experiencing this rise in drug overdose fatalities here in Colorado with an estimated 1,757 people dying last year, up by 700 from pre- pandemic years, according to preliminary data from the state Department of Public Health and Environment. And of those deaths, an estimated 803 involved fentanyl.
The reason drug cartels and dealers have turned to fentanyl is because it is cheap to manufacture and highly addictive. Law enforcement has shown that dealers know they are poisoning and killing people. These criminals who put profit above human lives deserve to be punished to the extent of the damage they have done to our communities.
Newly introduced legislation would do just that.
House Bill 1326, introduced March 25 by Democratic Speaker of the House Alec Garnett of Denver and Rep. Mike Lynch, a Republican from Wellington, would make the manufacture or sale of any “material, compound, mixture or preparation containing fentanyl” a level 1 drug felony when a person died from “using or consuming it.”
We support all of the above, because it is going to require a massive all- hands- ondeck effort in order to save lives. The fentanyl crisis is growing and has expanded to where we are hearing from law enforcement that fentanyl is being sprayed on black market marijuana.
And this bill is comprehensive, calling for widespread public education and broader community access to naloxone — a medication used to reverse the deadly effects of opioids — and it provides for mandatory treatment for individuals caught with drugs containing less than 4 grams of fentanyl.
We are not condoning illegal drug use, but in an effort to find compassionate and real solutions, it’s important to focus on the tragedy at hand and not judge the user for whatever their reasoning.
Trina Faatz, who facilitates a Substance Use Advisory Group for Boulder County, gave out 500 kits to high school students over the last few months.
“This is not to say that 500 kids are actively wanting to use drugs,” she explains. “It’s because these kids realize that there is a terrifying problem out there with any source of street drugs and they want to be able to help save lives.”
Join in the community effort to help prevent fentanyl overdoses by visiting www. Substanceuseadvisorygroup. org