Bill would protect 911 callers
Legislators tightened fentanyl possession penalties in ’22; tweak aims to save lives
A bill introduced in the state House late Thursday would expand a state law that provides immunity to drug users who try to save someone from overdosing, after those same protections were undermined inadvertently by lawmakers during last year’s fight over fentanyl legislation.
The bill would fix that apparent oversight, made when legislators tightened penalties for fentanyl possession in 2022. But it also would expand those immunity protections, available under the state’s good Samaritan law, to users who report an overdose of other illicit substances but were found to have shared drugs, and the measure also would provide an additional legal defense to some accused lowlevel dealers.
Supporters, such as bill sponsor Rep. Chris degruy Kennedy, cast the changes as commonsense solutions intended to save lives and work within the realities of drug use: At low levels, the lines between user and seller are often blurred, and calling for help should be encouraged whenever possible.
But law enforcement and district attorneys indicated they’re leery of some of the changes deGruy Kennedy, a Denver Democrat, is proposing.
Although representatives for those groups told The Denver Post late Thursday that they’re still examining the bill’s impact, law enforcement spent much of the last legislative session calling for tight penalties for anyone convicted of dealing fentanyl and other drugs, citing the state’s ongoing overdose crisis.
The diverging views of substance use and how to structure state laws to address it
echo that bruising legislative fight, which pit public health experts against law enforcement groups and stretched across two contentious months. Ultimately lawmakers last year lowered the threshold to charge users with felony, rather than misdemeanor, fentanyl possession.
Through that work, lawmakers essentially made a special carveout for fent anyl pos se s s ion, distinct from Colorado’s broader felony drug framework.
In turn, that cut some users out of the state’s good Samar itan law, which degruy Kennedy said was the result of lawmakers working on a large piece of legislation at the eleventh hour in May.
The top Republican in the House, Minority Leader Mike Lynch, who was a vocal supporter of increasing penalties last year, was unavailable for comment Thursday.
“The bill will make sure that people that are calling in an overdose event to try to save a life, who stay on scene and fully cooperate with law enforcement, are not going to face harsh penalties for choosing to do the right thing,” degruy Kennedy said.
That cleanup is largely noncontroversial for the constellation of law enforcement, district attorneys and harm-reduction advocates monitor ing the bill. There’s more disagreement with how the measure would apply to drug sharing and to certain low-level drug dealers
he bill would extend the good Samaritan law to a person who reports an overdose to 911 and cooperates but subsequently was found to have shared drugs with others. It wouldn’t give immunity to any drug dealers, but if someone who called 911 is suspected of selling small quantities of drugs, they could use that cooperation with first responders as a defense at any subsequent trial.
“What we’re really talking about, in the vast majority of cases, are going to be buddies getting together to share drugs, which may involve splitting the cost of drugs that one of them purchased, which would trigger a distribution crime,” deGruy Kennedy said. “To be clear, they are culpable of a crime in that case, but what I want to assert is that they need to prioritize saving the life of the person overdosing as opposed to running from the police.”
A coalition of Colorado law enforcement groups is still examining the bill but has concerns about the distribution and sharing provisions, a representative said Thursday. Tom Raynes, the executive director of the Colorado District Attorneys Council, said prosecutors are in a similar position.
District attorneys for Denver and Adams and Broomfield counties — with whom degruy Kennedy said he consulted in crafting the bill — were unavailable for comment late Thursday afternoon.
Experts in substance use, like the Harm Reduction Action Center’s Lisa Raville, have long maintained that sharing drugs and pooling money are common among substance users and don’t fit neatly into drug laws. Raville, whose Denver facility provides clean needles and smoking kits to substance users, praised the bill Thursday.
She said the new fentanyl penalties enacted last year had discouraged many substance users from calling 911.
“It was very clear that folks were very concerned,” she said.
“There was no good message. No one could feel confident in calling 911, so they simply weren’t. As the largest provider of harm reduction services in the state, I could not feel confident for them to call 911 either.”