Colorado Introduces New Bill to Combat Fentanyl

On March 25, Colorado lawmakers introduced a new bipartisan bill to the state house that would reduce the amount of fentanyl a person would need to possess in order to face felony charges, among with other measures aimed at combatting overdoses and misuse.

The bill states that the possession of any drug that weighs more than four grams and contains any amount of fentanyl makes it a Level 4 felony. 

The bill would: 

• Force some people caught with fentanyl to get into education and treatment programs
• A statewide overdose education campaign
• Make more opioid and fentanyl testing strips available around the state

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 80 to 100 times stronger than morphine, originally developed for cancer patients. It is also diverted for abuse and is added to heroin to increase its potency, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. 

Many people think that they are buying heroin, but they are actually buying fentanyl, which results in overdose deaths from its potency.  

Representative Leslie Herod released a statement to address the fentanyl crisis in which she expressed her concerns for the bill. 

“People are being poisoned, and some are dying. There is no question that something needs to be done to prevent more tragedy. Today, we take an important step by introducing this bill to do just that—prevent more deaths,” she says. 

Herod says that there’s been a lot of talking about the fentanyl crisis in the state, but that there’s a lot of misleading information about it, and for that reason “we need to take action, together. Action that is based on facts, not fear.” 

Herod adds, “We cannot arrest our way out of this problem. We’ve tried it that way, and it doesn’t work. We need to focus on keeping people alive, not putting addicts behind bars.”

According to a research from the Colorado Health Institute, fentanyl overdoses became more common between 2019 and 2020 and increased by 10 times since 2016. The state recorded an increase of 54% in the number of overdose deaths due to opioids.