Ask veterans of law enforcement if dealing illegal drugs is a “victimless crime.” They’ll tell you each transaction can have endless ripple effects that wreak havoc and wreck lives throughout the community.

Seasoned dealers of ultralethal opioids such as fentanyl, or other ruinous hard drugs such as heroin or meth, tend to have mile-long rap sheets for other crimes. Often enough, violent crimes.

The users they sell to also might turn to crime to support their habit. And that’s not to mention what their addictions do to their ability to hold a job, drive a car – or raise a child.

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And yet, Colorado’s “justice reform”-bound Legislature continues its relentless quest to water down penalties, curb incarceration and, essentially, to decriminalize crime – especially drug crimes. That’s even as our state reels from an epic crime wave alongside an epidemic of fentanyl overdoses.

The political fringe among ruling Democrats at the Capitol has been on a crusade over the past several years to legitimize illegal drug abuse and to coddle the criminals who supply the users.

The lawmakers have adopted wide-ranging new laws to implement their reckless agenda – the centerpiece being their 2019 legislation decriminalizing possession of Schedule I and Schedule II controlled substances, including fentanyl, to a mere misdemeanor.

A mounting public outcry over high crime in general as well as proliferating overdose deaths has slowed the crusade’s progress somewhat. Last week, a Senate committee wisely voted down a House bill that would have legalized “safe-injection” sites – where addicts would be given clean needles and coached by professionals in shooting up illegal drugs.

Yet, the radical campaign to normalize illegal, dangerous drug use proceeds. And now, the same advocates of normalization seek to justify their agenda in the face of public pushback. Lawmakers are hoping to cobble together a task force and commission it with a study that, in all likelihood, will yield “findings” that purport to justify the decriminalization binge.

House Bill 23-1258 would create the ineptly named “Evaluating the Costs Associated with Enforcement of Drug Laws and Incarceration for Drug Crimes Task Force” under the authority of the state Department of Public Health and Environment. It would meet four times and submit a report to the Legislature by Jan. 30.

Questions have arisen about the proposed task force’s makeup, which underrepresents law enforcement and skews toward the decriminalization and “harm reduction” movement.

The underlying problem with the proposal, of course, is the task force’s mandate. It aims to calculate the “costs associated with enforcement” – but not the costs of decriminalization. The task force’s work is a foregone conclusion. It will regard each time a hardened criminal drug dealer goes to prison as a “cost” and a failure of the justice system.

The task force won’t tally the savings to society of people who often enough have a history of theft and violence being taken off the streets. Nor will the task force’s work account for the benefit to a community of fewer lives and households being upended by illegal drug use and all that goes with it.

Public Safety Colorado, a law enforcement coalition of police and sheriffs opposing HB 23-1258, got it right in a recent news release: “Further reductions in the ability of law enforcement to investigate and arrest for drug activity will make our communities less safe and ultimately not serve those who need help in breaking their dependence on drugs.”

Let’s hope common sense prevails when the bill faces a hearing Monday in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board