A bill to allow supervised drug-use sites to open in willing Colorado cities cleared the state House for the second time in two years on Friday, but it faces a significant uphill battle in the face of opposition in the Senate and from Gov. Jared Polis.
House Bill 1028 is Rep. Elisabeth Epps’ second attempt to allow what advocates call safe-use sites to open in Denver and other cities that allow them. The facilities would provide a place where people could legally use illicit substances under the supervision of medical professionals.
The Denver City Council approved an ordinance allowing a facility to open several years ago, though it also required that the legislature sign off on the program first. The measure now heads to the Senate, where a committee killed last year’s approach and where there is bipartisan opposition to the policy.
The House approved the bill Friday on a 37-18 vote, with 10 legislators absent and a handful of Democrats joining Republicans in voting no.
The bill is backed by a coalition of medical professionals, harm reduction advocates and progressive lawmakers. Advocates argue the facilities are a vital tool to help introduce drug users to treatment while offering them an alternative to using drugs alone, often in public, and fatally overdosing.
That’s a particularly acute concern as fentanyl, the potent synthetic opioid, has come to dominate the drug market here and across the country. Fentanyl-related overdoses in Denver jumped nearly 60% in 2023 after plateauing the year before, according to city data.
Statewide, nearly 1,800 people fatally overdosed in 2022, the last year for which full data is available; fentanyl was involved in more than half of those deaths. According to preliminary city data, 68 Denverites have died from an overdose since the beginning of this year.
“Our neighbors are dying and they’re outside, alone, in tents and in alleys. They are using in public and in bathrooms and in train stations,” Epps, a Denver Democrat, told fellow lawmakers shortly before the bill passed an initial House vote Wednesday night. “… We know that there’s one requirement to be ready for rehabilitation: treatment.
“And the one requirement that every Coloradan has to have to be eligible for any sort of recovery support … is that you have to be alive.”
After last year’s bill failed, Democratic lawmakers attempted to draft a compromise and assuage opposition in the Senate over the summer. That effort was scuttled in October after Polis told lawmakers on an interim drug policy committee that he would veto the bill.
He’s consistently expressed opposition to the facilities, which have opened in New York City and have been approved to operate in Rhode Island.
Critics, including some moderate Democrats and all Republicans, have argued that safe-use sites enable drug use, and they’ve raised fears about increasing crime in the neighborhoods surrounding any proposed site.
Earlier this week, the Senate passed HB-1037, which, among other things, would allow approved organizations to distribute smoking kits and would ensure that drug users couldn’t be punished for possessing that equipment.
That bill will head to Polis’ desk after its House sponsors decide how to address changes made in the Senate.
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