Heavy trucks. They supply most of our goods yet pose a constant threat. Truckers and their employers must resolve the deadly dilemma, best described by a few of Colorado’s well-known tragedies.

April 25, 2019. Cuban Immigrant Rogel Aguilera-Mederos loses brakes in the eastbound lanes of I-70, passing a runaway truck ramp before heading into Lakewood. The truck smashes into a traffic jam, destroys 28 vehicles and kills four people. A judge sentences the driver to 110 years; Gov. Jared Polis reduces it to 10.

June 13, 2022. Jesus Puebla drives a truck northbound on Interstate 25 in Weld County, has braking problems and slams into the back of a car. The crash kills Aaron Godinez, Hailie Everts, their 3-month-old daughter, Tessleigh, and injures someone in another car. A judge last week sentenced Puebla to 11 years in prison on multiple counts of vehicular homicide.

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June 11, 2024. Ignacio Cruz-Mendoza — an immigrant who entered the country illegally 17 times — loses control of a semi, rolls it and drops a load of pipe on five other vehicles. The crash injures three and kills one. The driver, lacking a valid U.S. or commercial driver’s license, faces multiple charges and authorities determined the truck’s brakes did not work.

These are merely a few high-profile crashes. About 8.4% of all Colorado fatal crashes involve heavy trucks, and we seldom hear about them.

The National Safety Council reports a 49% increase in truck-crash fatalities in the past decade. The agency finds the involvement rate for each 100-million truck miles traveled rose 22% in the last 10 years.

We need trucks like we need aircraft. Trucking provides more than 110,000 Colorado jobs, paying annual wages of $52,000 for a total nearing $6 million. Nearly 14,000 trucking companies headquarter in Colorado. Tucks move more than 128,512 tons of goods each day in our state. About 80% of Colorado communities depend 100% on trucking to supply essential goods.

The report, authored by institute economist Steven Byers and former Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey, who now is a fellow with the institute, also details some of the latest numbers on the surging inflow of fentanyl into Colorado:

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration seized a record 425.6 kilograms of fentanyl in 2023, which the report observes is enough to kill every Coloradan 36 times.

The number of reported narcotic seizures by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation has increased over 104%, from 3,367 in 2008 to 7,434 in 2023.

The quantity of all narcotics seized in the state has increased 5,144% from 2008 to 2023.

Meanwhile, the report found, there were over 1,200 drug overdose deaths from fentanyl last year, 59% of which resulted from illegally manufactured fentanyl. That’s about three deaths per day on average — more than the number of people killed in homicides in Colorado in 2021, 2022 and 2023 combined.

As we noted here recently, Colorado once again has acquired a dubious national distinction when it comes to drug abuse. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overdose deaths dropped nationally from 2022 to 2023 — but rose 3.9% in Colorado. Our state ranked 10th with the highest rate of increase.

We’ve also pointed out before that a lot of the blame lies with our state’s lawmakers, who went soft on deadly drugs several years ago. In 2019, they decriminalized possession of fentanyl along with a host of other hard drugs, making it a misdemeanor.

As fentanyl deaths inevitably shot up in the wake of that preposterous policy shift, lawmakers relented a bit under public pressure and made possession of a gram or more a felony again. Meaning it still was only a misdemeanor to carry enough fentanyl to kill 500 people.

Beholden to the “justice reform” and “harm reduction” movements, our Legislature’s Democratic majority swatted down an attempt just last March to plug that lethal loophole.

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

As the law now stands, 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.

We’ll say it again: Carrying any amount of Colorado’s deadliest drug should be a felony. We renew our call on lawmakers to see to it.

Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board