Who are the faces of fentanyl? The victims of the deadly opiate that has been devastating our state include:

• A 1-year-old Brighton child who died after ingesting pure fentanyl.
• A 31-year-old physicist visiting from New Mexico, who died alone in a Glendale hotel room, where he was found with drug paraphernalia near his body.
• A 79-year-old Texas cowboy who died in the Highlands Ranch home he shared with others.
• Two Native American sisters – both students at Fort Lewis College in Durango who died after ingesting suspected fentanyl on campus.
• A teenager who died in her Colorado Springs classroom.
• Another who collapsed at a fast-food eatery.

And many, many more. The tragic tally in fact totals 462 Coloradans this year alone.

In a special report last week, The Gazette chronicled their deaths. Interviews with family members, coroners and death investigators, local sheriffs, police and first responders created a vivid picture of the heartache and shattered lives that fentanyl’s victims have left in their wake across our state.

Befitting its near-epidemic proportions, the fentanyl scourge doesn’t seem to discriminate. The Coloradans lost to fentanyl defy categorization and stereotype. As The Gazette’s report noted, the death toll includes young and old as well as the well-to-do and the poor, among a host of other wide-ranging characteristics. In 2022, fentanyl has killed five children under 14.

Since the drug began ravaging Colorado several years ago, overdose deaths have skyrocketed. Many victims likely didn’t know they were ingesting fentanyl.

In 2019, the state Legislature decriminalized possession of a host of hard drugs, including fentanyl. Anyone caught with under 4 grams of the lethal substance only couldn’t get more than a ticket from police.

Never mind that thousands of people would die from that much pure fentanyl; at least as frightening is the fact it has been turning up in all sorts of other illegal drugs, even so-called recreational drugs. Often enough, the fact it is mixed in with cocaine or heroin isn’t even known to the user. Which is why it is turning up in so many coroners’ reports.

Even worse, fentanyl typically comes in colorful little pills. Dealers and users call them “Skittles.” Brian Mason, district attorney for Colorado’s 17th Judicial District, has said children increasingly mistake the pills for candy. One pill is more than enough to kill a child.

Confronted with this disaster, which was at least partly of their creation, lawmakers were pressed to restore more serious penalties for fentanyl possession. But by the end of this year’s legislative session, they left possession of up to a gram of fentanyl a misdemeanor.

That amount still can make a lot of money for a drug dealer – and kill a lot of people. And what dealer isn’t merely “possessing” a drug for his own use – heck no, he’s not selling the stuff! – to avert a more serious charge if picked up by police?

Majority Democrats in the Legislature – with the help of some Republicans – bear responsibility for the 2019 decriminalization as well as for this year’s half-measure that fails to undo the damage. Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, meanwhile, signed both measures into law.

Of course, we can’t expect politicians to own up to their role in causing so many deaths – not in an election year. Even as the faces of fentanyl haunt them.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board