Boulder County repurposed one of its office buildings to provide temporary outpatient drug addiction treatment. Now, they are looking to buy a property for inpatient recovery.
addiction
Posted inOpinion Columns
Opinion: A better approach to serving Denver’s homeless is ‘rehabilitation first’
‘Housing first’ treats the issue like a cost-of-living problem. It’s not.
Posted inCrime and Courts, Health, News, Politics and Government
Denver jail lacks strategy to deal with mental health, fails to adequately monitor array of contracts, audit says
The Denver jail keeps unreliable data on its mental health programs, is failing to adequately monitor its contracts with mental health providers and could not show whether its transgender inmates are housed according to their preference, according to an audit released Thursday. The Denver Sheriff Department offers an array of programs to help inmates deal […]
Posted inHealth, News
This Littleton detox center feels like a relaxing hotel. Is this the way out of the fentanyl crisis?
LITTLETON — Each private room has a queen bed covered in a plush, gray comforter, plus a flat-screen TV and a remote control to browse Netflix and Hulu. For lunch and dinner, restaurant menus circulate and meals arrive via Uber Eats. Guests can log into their jobs from their rooms, or read a book beside a […]
Posted inHealth, News
With sports bets in the billions, Colorado still lags on tackling problem gambling
Only a matter of months after his 12-step meetings in a church basement transitioned to Zoom calls with the pandemic lockdown, a former sports bettor named Robby started seeing the next generation of problem gamblers begin to show their faces on his computer screen. He noticed the first new members once legalized sports betting launched […]
Posted inBook Excerpts, SunLit
Addiction, denial, despair — and joy — mark one woman’s thought experiment, aided by soft-hearted “guides”
Jenny Forrester (she/her) has been published in GetSparked, Gobshite Quarterly, Pom Pom Lit, Nailed Magazine to Columbia Review, Portland Review, Seattle’s City Arts Magazine, and elsewhere. Her books include “Narrow River, Wide Sky: A Memoir” and “Soft Hearted Stories: Seeking Saviors, Cowboy Stylists, and Other Fallacies of Authoritarianism.” She can be found at jennyforrester.com. The following […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: It’s time for our federal and state lawmakers to get serious about fentanyl
As federal prosecutors, we in the U.S. Attorney’s office battle daily with transnational drug dealers who seek to import their poison to Colorado. Working with our partners at the DEA, the FBI, Homeland Security and local law enforcement, we all too often seize large quantities of heroin, meth and cocaine destined for Colorado’s streets. […]
Posted inHealth, News, Politics and Government
Colorado could soon get a lot of money from opioid settlements. But where should those dollars go?
Colorado could soon be in line for tens of millions — maybe even hundreds of millions — of dollars from legal settlements related to the opioid epidemic. That kind of windfall would represent a major leap forward in the state’s effort to combat the crisis, which has claimed more than 5,000 Coloradans’ lives since 2000. […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, News, Politics and Government
A new Colorado law makes possessing thousands of fatal fentanyl doses a misdemeanor. Prosecutors are worried.
Colorado’s top federal prosecutor is sounding the alarm over a new state law that potentially makes possessing thousands of fatal doses of synthetic opioids a misdemeanor, saying it sends the wrong message as law enforcement and health officials are warning the public about the substances’ danger. State lawmakers earlier this year passed a bill that […]
Posted inHealth, News
Colorado emergency rooms are trying something new to stem the opioid crisis: addiction treatment
Years ago, when someone struggling with opioid dependency would show up in a Colorado emergency room after an overdose or as they were suffering through withdrawal, doctors and nurses would patch them up and send them on their way. “They came in and we made them feel a little bit better,” said Dr. Jason Hoppe, […]