When doctors write a prescription for the life-saving antidote to an opioid overdose, patients only bother to fill them about 5% of the time. But what if hospital physicians simply handed a vial of naloxone to the patients they worry are most likely to die, particularly those who were just rushed to the emergency room […]
heroin
Posted inColoradans, Crime and Courts, Health, News
Counterfeit opioid pills made in Mexico pushed Colorado into a third, deadly wave of the opioid crisis
Colorado has entered the third wave — the deadliest wave so far — in the opioid epidemic, as counterfeit opioid pills made to look like real oxycodone or Xanax are supplanting heroin in state drug-smuggling operations, the regional DEA office has warned. The evidence is in the overdose statistics, which skyrocketed in 2020. Overdoses due […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, News
64 members of “international drug trafficking network” indicted by Colorado grand jury
Colorado’s attorney general Friday announced grand jury indictments against 64 members of an alleged “international drug trafficking network” based in Colorado that authorities say moved millions of dollars worth of drugs into and around the state. A total of 159 charges were filed, including counts of racketeering and conspiracy under the Colorado Organized Crime Control […]
Posted inColoradans, Health, News, Politics and Government
Fentanyl overdoses are surging in Colorado as the powerful opioid is disguised as other drugs
For the past several years, law enforcement and public health officials have warned that fentanyl — a potent, synthetic opioid powder causing a spike in overdoses on the coasts — would soon arrive in Colorado. It’s clearly here, and the statistics for 2020 reveal a drastic jump in use of the drug considered 10 times […]
Posted inColoradans, COVID, Health, News, Politics and Government
Lack of child care prevents moms from getting drug treatment in Colorado. Here comes “RV Honey.”
Rewa Bailey’s office inside a substance abuse treatment center has an infant swing in the corner. Baby gates strategically placed throughout the building corral toddlers while their mothers try to focus on group therapy sessions. And as often as possible, the staff at Aspen Center in Westminster switches out the toys in an attempt to […]
Posted inOpinion, Write On, Colorado
Luck and privilege let me dodge HIV in Denver. But viruses don’t care who you are.
Back then, I lived adjacent to the HIV pandemic, as cells share membrane walls. In 1984, when I was 18 and flirting with a cocaine addiction, I had a lover with saucer pupils and long white fingers who tripped on acid through Thanksgiving dinner at my sister’s house, staring at brown gravy as it dripped […]
Posted inColoradans, Health, News, Politics and Government
Six RVs to help rural Colorado’s opioid addiction are coming to a parking lot near you
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — The RV will hit the road for a different northwest Colorado town each day, carrying urine toxicology tests, opioid-overdose antidotes, a counselor and a nurse. Sundays at the Mercantile in Hayden. Wednesdays at the Safeway in Fraser. Thursdays at the City Market in Granby. The rig is one of six that soon […]
Posted inHealth, Opinion, Opinion Columns
Nicolais: Some sun in the dark clouds of the opioid epidemic
Colorado lost 578 people to opioid overdoses in 2017 according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Five hundred and seventy-eight friends, family members, neighbors and co-workers. And that is just the surface of the opioid epidemic we hear about so often but have so much difficulty combating. The Colorado Sun has an entire tag […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, News
Colorado woman gets prison for fatal heroin sale after U.S. attorney vows to treat overdose deaths as homicides
A Colorado woman has been sentenced to over six years in federal prison for selling heroin blamed for killing another woman. Twenty-four-year-old Kayla Pagano of Westminster learned her sentence Wednesday in Denver in the death of an unidentified woman in May 2018. According to Pagano’s plea agreement, the woman passed out after using the heroin […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, Health, News
Supervised injection site supporters aren’t ready to give up on the conversation in Colorado
The quest to include Denver among the first cities in the nation to open a supervised injection site for drug users isn’t dead, at least not along the front lines of the city’s war against heroin. Colorado was buzzing last fall — on talk radio, at City Council and among state policymakers — about a […]