The highest-ranking members of The Gazette’s Fentanyl Hall of Shame own much of the blame for the latest-known fentanyl death of a baby.

Topping the Fentanyl Hall of Shame is Republican Rep. Shane Sandridge, R-Colorado Springs. He takes sole “credit” for writing a 2019 bill that made him a darling of the left. The resulting law effectively decriminalized deadly street drugs including fentanyl — the deadliest of them all by magnitudes.

Second in the Fentanyl Hall of Shame is Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, who signed the Sandridge death bill into law. Other ranking members are former Democratic House Speaker Alec Garnett, Democratic Rep. Leslie Herod, and Democratic Rep. Brittany Petersen. The above and others failed to repair the 2019 legislative atrocity with a bill this year that could have corrected the problem.

Sandridge, Polis and other Hall of Shamers think massive amounts of fentanyl — enough to kill hundreds — comprise no big deal. It is so nonserious that they enacted a law this year turning deadly drug dealers into good Samaritans if they kill, and then cooperate with cops.

Baby Cairo is only the latest tragic outcome of the fentanyl free-for-all they created by negating most legal risks, thus inviting fentanyl dealers to Colorado.

Cairo Astacio died in November, and his death avoided the news until this month. The public hears about increasing childhood fentanyl deaths on social media, and sometimes these tragedies make the news after months of investigation.

Cairo was 15 months old when fentanyl killed him in his Colorado Springs home. The baby was doomed to an early death by parents who were well known to authorities as routine drug users. The Hall of Shame hierarchy has codified compassion for adult drug users, without much concern for Cairo and others among their victims.

Sandridge claims his law helps drug users by making massive possession a minor crime. By not convicting these people and imposing serious consequences, he and his supporters insist our system can help them with counseling. Drugs are a personal problem, not a crime with innocent victims. Baby Cairo might disagree, but we can’t talk to him.

In Cairo’s case, all the “we’re helping drug users” psychobabble played a direct role in his death.

Two days after Cairo’s birth, the Colorado Department of Human Services received a complaint about the child’s parents using drugs in the baby’s home. The danger continued without consequence.

A month and a few days later, the department received a second complaint about drug abuse in the home and an “injurious environment” for baby Cairo.

A third complaint came to the agency a few days later. In November — after at least three complaints that did nothing to help the victim child — baby Cairo died in his parents’ bed.

A search of the home found scales, bottles of pills, baggies, a variety of white powdery substances, aluminum foil with black residue and pillowcases filled with illicit drugs.

An autopsy found the baby died from a fentanyl overdose. This would require Cairo to ingest only a few granules on the bed, on one of his parents’ skin, or on any surface in the home.

After a lengthy investigation of baby Cairo’s death, Colorado Springs cops arrested his parents on July 1. Joenny Manuel Astacio, 36, and Kira Lee Villalba, 29, face charges of drug possession and child abuse resulting in death.

This tragedy did not result in the law protecting other children from baby Cairo’s parents. After Cairo’s death, during the eight months it took to arrest the couple, police claim the suspects nearly killed another child.

As reported by Gazette news partner Channel 9 Denver, the arrest report says “Villalba and Astacio were with a 13-year-old girl who overdosed on Dec. 12, 2021 (after baby Cairo’s death). She was taken to the hospital and survived. The girl later said that Astacio gave her a substance. The same girl overdosed again in February of this year and again reported that Astacio provided her with the substance she consumed.”

Those who wonder how the system allowed this couple to continue harming children need only consider the Hall of Shame. Sandridge, Polis and others consider drug-using adults as victims — not criminals with addictions and substances that kill others. Their law tells law enforcement that drug possession is a low priority.

Indeed, adults who possess deadly drugs are typically addicts who need help. They are also criminals in need of consequences, such as incarceration, that protect their innocent victims. The state treated baby Cairo’s parents as neither addicts nor criminals in advance of his death. By all accounts, baby Cairo had no chance. That’s the fault of Sandridge, Polis and the rest of the Hall of Shame.

Colorado Springs Gazette editorial board