DENVER — Fentanyl and overdose deaths are once again rising in Denver.
Preliminary numbers from the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment (DDPHE) show the number of deaths have hit an all-time high.
"This is the worst we've ever seen," said Lisa Raville, executive director of the Harm Reduction Action Center.
Preliminary data from the DDPHE reports 522 people died from an overdose last year in Denver. 342 of those deaths were from fentanyl.
That's the highest number we've seen yet. And Raville said it's frustrating.
"We are really struggling with the grief here and this is out of control. This is simply preventable, this does not need to happen. 522 people died in Denver of a drug-related death, it does not have to be like this," Raville said.
"It's preliminary data of course, we have about 150 cases still pending. But we are seeing right now that we are 15% over where we were in 2022," said Dr. Sterling McLaren, assistant medical examiner with the Denver Medical Examiner's Office. “It is unfortunate that it continues to increase. I think we were hoping to see it slow down a bit but we do keep seeing it going up.”
McLaren said they see people coming in daily after dying from an overdose.
"It's easy to become a little bit numb to it. But we have a passion for the science and the work behind, which is what keeps us going," McLaren said.
But McLaren said the increase in overdose deaths, including the high numbers of fentanyl-related deaths, isn't surprising.
"I think the bigger story that is often missed is that it's often poly-substance. So it's not just one drug, it's not just fentanyl but it's a mixture of drugs that are contributing to death," McLaren said. And a really big player here is methamphetamine."
How to reduce drug overdose deaths, including fentanyl-related deaths, is an issue many around Colorado don't agree on.
In 2022, legislators ended up siding with district attorneys who asked for a new statute so they could charge someone for distributing fentanyl that killed a person. The idea was to get those dealers out of the community.
As of August 2023, just 17 people had been charged for dealing fentanyl that killed someone.
Raville said the way the state is taking on overdose deaths is making a bad problem worse.
"I can't help but bring up the 2022 fentanyl criminalization bill, fentanyl drug-induced homicides making every fentanyl overdose death a murder investigation," Raville said. You don't get the cartel that way, you don't get midlevel sellers, you get low-level sellers like friends and family members."
Raville wants to see Colorado lawmakers tackle this issue not with incarceration but as a public health crisis. She believes implementing overdose prevention centers and allowing methadone to be made available in pharmacies, not just clinics, can help to turn this deadly trend around.
"There are opportunities for larger conversations. Doing the same thing over and over again hasn't been working for them. Shift. Let's push forward together in a harm reduction, evidence-based way," Raville said.
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