The grim news in The Gazette last week was that deadly fentanyl continues to poison Colorado — and appears to be flowing in at record levels.

Last year, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Rocky Mountain Field Division seized 2.61 million fentanyl pills in the state, setting a new record. But as The Gazette reported, that record soon may be broken.

Nearly 1.8 million fentanyl pills have been seized by the DEA’s Rocky Mountain Field Division in fiscal 2024. With four months left in the federal fiscal year, the department expects to surpass 2023’s record.

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Meaning, Colorado is setting back-to-back records for confiscation of the lethal contraband — a milestone nobody wanted to see. It is of course a credit to the diligence of the DEA that it is stopping so much of the cheap-to-produce, synthetic opioid. Yet, it’s also a chilling indicator of how much Colorado-bound fentanyl, produced by Mexican cartels, likely is eluding law enforcement and getting through to our streets.

A DEA official called the seizures “unprecedented” and acknowledged the implications.

“Fentanyl poisonings are the leading cause of death for Americans 18 to 45 years of age,” the DEA’s Rocky Mountain Field Division Acting Special Agent in Charge David Olesky said in a press release.

Perhaps more distressing, as The Gazette also reported, is that Colorado once again has acquired a dubious national distinction when it comes to drug abuse. While new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that overall overdose deaths dropped nationally between December 2022 and December 2023, Colorado overdose deaths rose. Our state’s 3.9% spike in overdose deaths ranked 10th among the states with the highest rate of increase.

A big reason? Our state’s lawmakers went soft on deadly drugs several years ago — and rebuffed an opportunity in this year’s legislative session to make amends and rein in rampant drug abuse.

Beholden to the “justice reform” and “harm reduction” movements, our Legislature’s Democratic majority swatted down an attempt in March to curb retail fentanyl. The House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to kill a Republican bill that would have patched a gaping hole in state law that the Legislature had created in 2019.

That was the year the lawmakers decriminalized possession of fentanyl along with a host of other hard drugs, making it a misdemeanor. As fentanyl deaths shot up, lawmakers relented a bit under public pressure a couple of years ago and made possession of a gram or more a felony again. But that still left it a misdemeanor to carry enough fentanyl to kill 500 people.

Had it survived, the Republican proposal would have made possession of any amount of fentanyl or similar opioids a Level 4 drug felony, as it was before 2019.

Under current law, carrying half or three quarters of a gram of fentanyl continues to give cover to a dealer prowling the streets. He can claim to cops who bust him that those little blue pills are for his use. Which is a simple misdemeanor — a slap on the wrist. He intended to sell them, of course — exposing possibly hundreds of people to the potential for fatal overdoses.

Carrying any amount of Colorado’s deadliest drug should be a felony, and we renew our call on lawmakers to do the right thing. Meanwhile, ask your state senator and representative where they stand — with Mexico’s global drug cartels, or with Colorado’s kids.

Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board