DENVER — While HB 22-1326, which looks to toughen charges on fentanyl users, passed the Colorado Senate this week, it's already endured some changes to its language.
As it reads right now, anyone possessing 1 gram of a drug can face a felony, if that drug is mixed with fentanyl.
The senate did away with wording that requires people to know if said drugs are mixed with fentanyl.
While some believe those changes cause the bill to go after the wrong people, others believe it provides the tools to prosecute dealers of the drug that's seemingly gained prevalence in Colorado in recent years.
The bill still has to head back to the house, but lawmakers will have to work fast as the legislative session ends on May 11.
A hope for change
Legislative sessions aren't only busy for lawmakers, but advocates too, like Tonya Wheeler.
“Typically every legislative session there’s something that’s going to come up that involves the treatment and recovery field," she said.
Wheeler is the executive director of Advocates for Recovery Colorado, which provides free peer support recovery services for those in active addiction or in the early stages of recovery.
Wheeler herself will soon enter her 32nd year in recovery.
“We support all pathways of recovery, we believe there is no wrong door," she said.
The changes to this most recent bill she says, take a step backward.
"Arresting people does not reduce the instances of act of addiction that it does not help people to get better and with the community that I work with, I get to see the results of people that have felonies on their record and they have difficult times getting housing and getting jobs,” she explained. “They want to play the card of the dealer implying that those are the big dealers…my experience is that the big dealers don’t get arrested. And who gets arrested and who the consequences affect are the people who are themselves addicted to the substances – and that’s not fixing the problem.”
Wheeler initially testified against lowering the threshold of 4 grams to 1 gram, and hopes the part of the bill that includes whether or not someone knew the drug they took had fentanyl is put back in.
“I think that there is some justification between up to 4 grams and over 4 grams – that we have more of a tendency to get those folks who are truly selling the drug and being dealers, versus those folks who are just part of …that’s part of their addiction,” she said. “And I think we have to err on the side of caution and continue to help people get services rather than prison sentences."
The tools to charge dealers
When five people died after taking fentanyl-laced drugs at a Commerce City apartment in February, it was in Democratic District Attorney Brian Mason's district.
"Fentanyl is ravaging our communities. And nobody knows that better than Adams County, where we have lost so many people from fentanyl poisonings," he said. "This bill is a huge step forward."
He hopes now that the bill passes in its current form, saying that it gives law enforcement the tools to charge dealers distributing fentanyl.
"The way that the fentanyl crisis is impacting my community, it gives me a sense of despair. And I think many people feel that sense of despair. Certainly families who have lost loved ones to fentanyl poisoning feel that despair. This bill is a light of hope for us to actually make progress in addressing this crisis," he said. "This bill gives us a tool to charge dealers who are distributing fentanyl causing death. We don't have that charge on the books right now. That is a huge improvement in the law. And this bill does that."
Mason added that he believes the goals of harm reduction centers and of district attorneys and law enforcement don't have to be mutually exclusive.
"I also want people who have addiction to get help. And we work really hard to make sure that folks who are involved in the criminal justice system with addiction issues get the help that they need. Do we need to do more of it? Of course. Do we need more resources for it? Yes. But that's something that we can all come together on and work together on. But we also need to come together on getting the poison that fentanyl is off the streets. And I hope that this bill will help us do that," he said.
Wheeler shared a similar message.
“We have some really great relationships with some law enforcement offices around the state and with people who are working in the judicial system and I think that if we can all come together and respectfully listen to each other and talk this through, we could get a lot more solution rather than this idea that people with addiction are throwaways." Wheeler said in part.
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