Fentanyl overdose crisis strategy unveiled by Gov. Polis, state lawmakers
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After a lot anticipation, a bipartisan group of state lawmakers and district attorneys joined Gov. Jared Polis on the Capitol on Thursday to introduce laws aimed toward addressing the rise in fentanyl overdose deaths in Colorado.
They suggest growing penalties for individuals who manufacture, promote or distribute the highly effective artificial opioid whereas requiring individuals convicted of sure crimes involving fentanyl to bear habit remedy as a situation of probation.
“I’ve been working hand in hand with Colorado’s district attorneys to craft a complete answer that assaults fentanyl from all sides and offers legislation enforcement the instruments they should crack down on this lethal poison,” Home Speaker Alec Garnett, a Denver Democrat who’s sponsoring the laws, mentioned at Thursday’s information convention. “Fentanyl overdoses and fentanyl poisonings are killing far too many Coloradans and devastating our communities.”
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The Colorado Division of Public Well being and Surroundings recorded 1,757 complete drug overdose deaths amongst Colorado residents in 2021, in response to Very important Statistics Program Supervisor Kirk Bol. That’s the highest number in recent history, and it represents a 19% enhance from 2020, when 1,477 died of drug overdose.
State knowledge will not be but finalized, Bol cautioned, and the overall might change between now and Might. However of the overdose deaths recorded so far, 1,173 concerned some type of opioid (a 23% enhance from 2020), and 854 particularly concerned fentanyl (up 58% from 2020).
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Lately, fentanyl has began exhibiting up extra in avenue medication akin to heroin, meth, cocaine and ecstasy, in addition to counterfeit prescription tablets. Producers of illicit medication add it to substances to extend their efficiency and enhance their revenue margins, or it might probably get added on account of accidental cross-contamination. A latest decline within the nationwide heroin provide has additionally led some heroin customers to seek out fentanyl pressed pills, that are simpler to fabricate and distribute, and which many want to injecting heroin.
Fentanyl is highly effective sufficient to trigger a deadly overdose at a dose no larger than 2 milligrams, making it extra lethal than different varieties of opioids.
Harder penalties for distribution
Garnett’s invoice — additionally sponsored by Wellington Republican Rep. Mike Lynch, plus Sens. Brittany Pettersen, a Lakewood Democrat, and John Cooke, a Greeley Republican — would make it a stage 4 drug felony to own any substance weighing greater than 4 grams that accommodates any quantity of fentanyl, carfentanil, or their analogs. Carfentanil is a substance 100 occasions stronger than fentanyl, used to tranquilize elephants and different giant animals.
It’s already a stage 4 felony in Colorado to own greater than 4 grams of a schedule I or II managed substance, however the invoice would explicitly say that legislation applies to substances containing fentanyl, not simply pure fentanyl — which is never seized by legislation enforcement as a result of it’s so lethal even in extraordinarily small portions.
Some prosecutors and state lawmakers, citing the rise in fentanyl overdose deaths, had called for the reversal of a 2019 law that made possession as much as 4 grams of a managed substance — previously a felony — a stage 1 drug misdemeanor.
Garnett’s invoice would enhance penalties for distribution, nonetheless. Manufacturing, distributing or promoting a substance containing any quantity of fentanyl, carfentanil or their analogs would turn into a stage 1 drug felony if the substance being manufactured or bought weighed a complete of greater than 50 grams, down from 225 grams underneath present legislation. The invoice would additionally shift the thresholds for lower-level felonies. If the substance weighed between 4 and 50 grams — down from 14 to 225 grams — that will be a stage 2 drug felony, and distributing or promoting 4 grams or much less, down from 14 grams or much less, would represent a stage 3 drug felony.
Individuals who introduced the substance containing fentanyl into Colorado from out of state and those that possessed tools for manufacturing tablets can be topic to a stage 1 drug felony, even at smaller quantities.
“It’s time to make Colorado a safer state for everyone and it’s time for the carnage to finish,” Polis mentioned on the information convention. “There’s nobody single invoice or reform that may finish the fentanyl drawback or the drug drawback in Colorado, however this effort will completely go a great distance by giving prosecutors the flexibility to go after extra legal fees for fentanyl, for these distributing it, for individuals who have capsule presses.”
Mandating remedy, strengthening hurt discount
For individuals convicted of crimes involving fentanyl, Garnett’s invoice would require as a situation of probation that they obtain habit remedy in a residential facility, if advisable by a behavioral well being evaluation. Sure convictions would mandate a fentanyl schooling class, developed by the Workplace of Behavioral Well being, as a part of the sentence.
The invoice would additionally take steps to strengthen “hurt discount” methods in Colorado. Such methods settle for that individuals will use medication and take steps to scale back the hurt brought on by their use, quite than an abstinence-only philosophy. For one, it could develop the checklist of organizations which might be eligible to obtain a standing order from the Colorado Division of Public Well being and Surroundings for giant shipments of the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone. Beneath a state legislation handed in 2015, pharmacies, hurt discount businesses, legislation enforcement officers and native public well being businesses can already request naloxone standing orders from the state.
There is not any one single invoice or reform that may finish the fentanyl drawback or the drug drawback in Colorado, however this effort will completely go a great distance.
The laws would require jails to supply naloxone and prescribe medicines, akin to buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone, to individuals with opioid use problems upon their launch. It could require neighborhood corrections applications, also called “midway homes,” to observe individuals for signs of substance use withdrawal and develop protocols for his or her acceptable care.
“Our jails will not be simply a part of the legal justice system, however now are a part of the behavioral well being system as nicely,” famous Cooke, the previous Weld County sheriff.
The invoice would offer civil immunity for individuals or entities that offer testing strips used to test medication for fentanyl, defending them from lawsuits. Moreover, it could enable public faculties and constitution faculties to distribute fentanyl testing strips on faculty grounds. A brand new fund, just like the state’s current bulk buying fund for naloxone, would let organizations buy fentanyl testing strips in giant portions at discounted costs.
Lastly, the invoice would require the state well being division to roll out a fentanyl prevention and schooling marketing campaign.
Advocates skeptical of extra criminalization
Since 2011, 39 states have handed or enacted legal guidelines that criminalize fentanyl, in response to the Drug Policy Alliance, a nationwide group working to finish such punitive drug insurance policies.
As the chief director of Denver’s Hurt Discount Motion Heart, Lisa Raville offers providers akin to counseling, fentanyl testing strips and clear syringes to individuals who inject medication and their households. HRAC is aligned with the Drug Coverage Alliance on fentanyl and believes that to scale back deaths, coverage makers ought to enhance entry to naloxone and develop the variety of hurt discount organizations and cellular outreach providers with entry to wash syringes.
“There’s all the time going to be one other artificial opioid,” Raville added in an interview. “Regulation enforcement has by no means been in a position to arrest their manner out of drug use, or they merely would have been in a position to try this earlier than. Incarceration and criminalization introduced us fentanyl, introduced us the worst overdose disaster we’ve ever seen. So my concern is that we’re now going to have now a brand new artificial opioid, which goes to be unpredictable and folk are going to be unclear about how they work, and places individuals at larger danger of overdosing.”
Raville additionally helps overdose prevention websites, also called secure injection websites — state-sanctioned areas the place individuals can use medication underneath the supervision of volunteers and public well being staff, who present provides akin to clear syringes and referrals to remedy. Although Denver Metropolis Council and Mayor Michael Hancock permitted such a web site in 2018, the Colorado Normal Meeting has yet to pass a bill that will allow the follow underneath state legislation. New York City opened the nation’s first state-sanctioned overdose prevention websites in November.
Pettersen, who’s operating for Congress, had deliberate to run such a invoice again in 2019 — however now, she’s firmly towards the thought.
“If persons are critical about addressing the overdose disaster, we have to focus in areas the place we don’t take 100 steps backwards,” Pettersen informed Newsline in January. “All that’s, is politically divisive. It brings stigma and concern across the people who find themselves probably the most susceptible.” She identified that early final 12 months, the Third Circuit Court docket of Appeals dominated towards a proposed web site in Philadelphia, which might have been the primary of its form within the U.S.
When requested whether or not Polis would help a invoice authorizing supervised injection websites, spokesperson Kara Powell offered the next response: “There isn’t a laws on this. Governor Polis has proposed a complete public security package deal that can assist enhance entry to remedy for Coloradans in disaster, and invests in confirmed methods, together with co-responder applications to forestall at-risk people from turning into concerned, or additional concerned within the legal justice system.”
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