A number of things have absorbed a great deal of the polemical oxygen from the room during the last couple of weeks; important Supreme Court rulings that affirmed equilibrium in the separation of powers, a couple key (and unfortunate) elections in Great Britain and France, and of course that exercise in absurdity marketed as a “debate” which served mainly to demonstrate why there ought to be limitations on the executive branch, and make Americans at least thankful they are only electing a president and not a king.

The day of that, er, debate, a far more intellectually stimulating event was hosted in Denver by the Common Sense Institute, one which, in stark contrast to whatever the hell that was on CNN, was well worth the time of all who participated. Aptly titled “Fentanyl: Our Nation’s Most Devastating Challenge,” the event featured a panel discussion moderated by The Gazette’s Executive Editor Vince Bzdek, and which included some of the brightest minds and most informative voices on the gruesome subject: Mitch Morrisey, the former Denver district attorney, one of the early champions of the utilization of DNA technology in criminal justice, and now CSI Owens-Early Criminal Justice Fellow; Paul Pazen, the smart, innovative yet tough-as-nails (and recently retired) Denver police chief, now also a CSI Public Safety Fellow; Max Williams, former director of Oregon’s Department of Corrections and past president of the Oregon Community Foundation, who has been working diligently on the fentanyl scourge in that state; and Rachel Mitchell, county attorney for Maricopa County in Arizona.

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We are all fairly cognizant of the omnipresent threat of drug abuse, particularly fentanyl of late, especially if we spend a moment or two reading a newspaper or glancing up from whatever we are doing to catch some of the news on TV. But it is useful every now and then to hear from those who are on the front lines of the problem just how bad it is.

It is not enough to just know the costs and damage done, in overdose deaths, residual crime, actual financial costs to society, and so on — it’s useful to be reminded of the staggering figures, but no reasonable minds dispute that fentanyl proliferation is a problem approaching the existential. It is even more profitable to dissect what is being done about it and figure out if it is working or not.

The gestating figures would suggest current fashionable approaches — focusing on “harm reduction” and suing doctors rather than approaching it as a criminal problem — are not working. Much of the discussion, correctly, focused on the Colorado legislature’s foolhardy attempts in recent years to decriminalize possession of hard drugs. That particular experiment failed so badly it was at least partially undone in the last session. As Max Williams pointed out on the panel, speaking of Oregon’s own failures in this arena, “decriminalization didn’t create homelessness, crime, addiction and so forth; but it exacerbated it.” Indeed.

County Attorney Mitchell brought a level of poignancy to the panel, being on — quite literally — the front lines of the problem, insomuch as this is no longer an over-prescription issue; that part of the problem was addressed long ago, and lingers mainly in abuse of the legal system by contingency fee-based trial lawyers seeking to cash in. The problem is now driven by the Mexican cartels, who import precursor chemicals from the People’s Republic of China, manufacture it, press it into counterfeit pills (usually) in Mexico and smuggle it across the border in quantities that difficult to comprehend.

Ms. Mitchell outlined some other accessory problems the fentanyl trade catalyzes as well, such as the advent of organized retail crime. She points out how large a problem this is in California, and more importantly, it’s export to other regions. Why it is spreading to other states is sobering: “We used to think, half-jokingly, that (organized retail crime) moved into (Arizona) because there was nothing left in California to steal.” But in fact, “we now know that it is because there is too much competition there.” Think about that for a minute.

There was much to absorb from this event, including a partial screening of Steffan Tubbs’s masterfully done documentary on fentanyl appropriately titled “Devastated”; watch it, with your kids if you have any, it is well worth the time.

Illicit fentanyl is a societal problem that requires a response based in reality, not ideology. Harm reduction is important, yes; but it has its limits. This is a criminal problem, and ignoring the criminal and enforcement sides of it, and refusing to employ every law enforcement tool at our disposal to confront it will help no one, least of all those enslaved by the drug’s deadly grip.

Kelly Sloan is a political and public affairs consultant and a recovering journalist based in Denver.