Colorado Gov. Jared Polis killed two birds with one stone this week, and both birds had it coming.

He put the kibosh on the latest legislative attempt to legalize “safe use” sites – where drug addicts, believe it or not, could get their fix with the blessing of local authorities.

In so doing, Polis also accomplished something else. He effectively told the growing radical fringe among his fellow Democrats running the Legislature that there’s only so far he’s willing to let them go. If only he’d tell that to them more often.

As reported by The Gazette, an interim legislative committee charged with addressing Colorado’s opioid crisis advanced four bills on Monday for consideration by the full Legislature when it convenes in January. But the committee rejected a proposal to allow facilities where people could use illegal drugs legally, supervised by health professionals.

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The draft legislation considered by the committee also would have established a pilot program in municipalities that have authorized those facilities. Denver did so several years ago but has been blocked for lack of state authorization.

The sites would be a disaster – a magnet for drug use and other crime as well as a dead end, literally, for the addicts.

Although the committee’s members technically get credit for voting down this reckless idea, the governor deserves kudos for making it happen. As noted in news reports, the administration had made it clear to committee members and especially committee Democrats that any bill allowing safe-use sites would meet the business end of his veto pen.

The governor enunciated his stand in a meeting with The Gazette’s editorial board Wednesday: “…It’s always been my position that these lawless zones for drugs are a detriment to public safety and to the health of individuals and to the public safety at large.”

Agreed.

The safe-use sites, also called “needle exchanges” and even “overdose prevention centers,” ought to be called assisted-suicide centers. The sites only add to the agony of addicts by stringing them out longer with sterile needles and expert guidance. The idea is to make sure they don’t overdose – until their next fix, that is. That’s when they’ll OD under a bridge; in a tent in a homeless camp; maybe in a public library’s restroom.

Colorado is indeed experiencing an addiction crisis. It’s a cause of crime and is at the root of much of the chronic homelessness on our streets. Addiction tears apart families, renders addicts unemployable and ruins lives. It undermines our youth at school. And, of course, it kills.

But that’s all the more why the response must be to move addicts into rehab – not to aid and abet their addictions. Even advocates of the “harm reduction” movement acknowledge safe-use sites serve little purpose beyond curbing hepatitis from dirty needles and occasionally heading off an overdose by providing advice on shooting up.

To help perpetuate in any way one of the most crippling and destructive maladies in our society is cynical and cruel. It’s as if to say the addicts eventually will kill themselves anyway, so let’s help them do it right.

Instead, how about keeping them alive – and getting their lives back on track? It could mean arresting addicts for possession – followed by immediate diversion to rehab with a court-ordered expectation to kick the habit.

Rather than condemn addicts to the slow death of addiction, it would offer them a whole new lease on life.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board