A bill that would allow cities to license overdose prevention centers in Colorado will not make it to an interim committee to be presented to the Legislature next year.
Democratic Sen. Kyle Mullica and Rep. Mary Young voted with the four Republicans on the Opioid and Substance Use Disorders Study Committee to block the bill from moving out of committee on Monday, even after it was amended to have a narrower scope.
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The bill, as a first step, would have allowed a pilot program under which local municipalities could authorize overdose prevention centers – sometimes called supervised injection sites – to operate until 2028. The prevention centers overdoses refer to sites where people can consume illicit drugs and, if necessary. , be treated in the event of an overdose by qualified personnel.
An amendment proposed Monday would have limited the pilot program to just the city and county of Denver, where the city council passed an ordinance in 2018 to open a site.
That wasn’t enough to gain support from Young or Mullica, who also voted against a similar bill during the Senate committee hearing last legislative session.
“I fully recognize…that the goal here is to help people. I don’t think there’s anything that can be faulted for that, and that’s where my commitment came in to see if there was a space that I could access,” Mullica said. “Unfortunately, today I will not be able to support this bill, but I appreciate the conversations and growth that has come from it.”
Young said that while she supported the science behind the bill, she voted against it to reflect her district’s constituency. His district is based in Greeley.
Harm reduction experts say overdose prevention centers save lives and connect drug users to helpful resources. A 2021 review of research on the topic found that the sites reduce overdose deaths and increase people’s access to recovery support, without increasing overall crime in the surrounding area.
“Legislatures were saying ‘no’ to clean needles, fentanyl test strips and defunding Narcan. It was a reality not too long ago,” said Rep. Elisabeth Epps, a Denver Democrat who sponsored the similar bill last session. These harm reduction measures are now generally accepted and supported by the government.
“Backlash can feel like losing a bill and losing it again. It’s OK. We will continue to insist. And the reaction may feel like elected officials are losing their seats, but that’s okay either – I’m going to speak for myself, but I was sent to serve and work to save lives, not to save a seat,” she said. “A person I care about very much who is in recovery…reminds me that this work, our political work, is not unlike recovery, in that recovery is a process. It takes time. It needs patience. It takes everything we have.
Before the committee discussed and voted on the bill, Rep. Chris deGruy Kennedy, a Lakewood Democrat who chairs the group, said that in conversations with Democratic Gov. Jared Polis’ office, he learned that the Governor would veto an overdose prevention center bill if it reached his desk.
“I’m obviously disappointed. I intend to continue conversations with the governor to try to convince him with some of the information that I have disseminated to this committee throughout the summer,” he said.
In a statement, Polis spokesman Conor Cahill wrote that the governor had made clear his opposition to “drug consumption sites.”
“(Polis) looks forward to continuing to work with the Legislature to help people fight substance use disorders, end the scourge of fentanyl, and crack down on drug dealers to make Colorado the one of the ten safest states. There is also great uncertainty nationally about the role of the federal government and how it will enforce against these sites already operating in other states,” he wrote.
The bill will not be introduced as a committee bill, but an individual lawmaker can still introduce it or a similar bill in the next session.
The committee on Monday approved four other bills related to prevention, treatment, recovery and harm reduction for people who use drugs. These bills will be submitted to the Legislative Council for approval for introduction next year.
The legislature meets again in January.
