A bipartisan panel of Colorado lawmakers on Tuesday endorsed a wide-ranging package of bills to blunt the state’s opioid crisis, proposing limits on some prescriptions and more money for treatment and prevention programs.
The legislation represents the state’s most comprehensive response to a spike in drug overdose deaths in recent years, with the measures poised for introduction when the General Assembly returns in January.
“We’ve laid the framework, but we still have a lot of work to do,” said state Rep. Brittany Pettersen, the committee chairwoman, who led the effort after earlier this year sharing the story of how her mother struggled with prescription opioid and heroin addiction.
Her mother, Stacy, attended the committee’s final meeting at the Capitol, sitting in the front row as lawmakers approved the bills. “Mom, thank you for inspiring me to do this work to try to help others,” Pettersen told her during the meeting.
In Colorado, the rate of drug overdose deaths since 2000 more than doubled, to 16.1 per 100,000 residents in 2016, driven largely by opioids. The rate of prescription opioid-related deaths tripled in the past five years, according to state health officials, while fatal overdoses related to heroin — also an opioid — increased nearly five times in the same period.
Last week, President Donald Trump declared opioid abuse a national public health emergency, a move the put more attention on the issue but didn’t include any immediate additional money to help states combat the problem.
Colorado’s Opioid and Other Substance Use Disorders Interim Study Committee met for four months to develop the legislation and saw an outpouring of support despite resistance from doctors and other health care providers who expressed concerns about imposing new rules to control opioid use.
Don Stader, an emergency physician at Swedish Medical Center, told lawmakers that “letting the medical field kind of police medicine” was the best approach, even as others pointed to studies showing concerns about overprescribing by doctors.
The six bills that won approval included provisions that would:
- Impose a seven-day limit on some opioid prescriptions except in cases where a doctor deems more is necessary, such as chronic pain and cancer.
- Allow Denver to create a supervised injection facility for drug users, which may conflict with federal law.
- Seek a federal waiver to allow the Medicaid program to cover residential rehabilitation for opioid addiction, a measure that could cost as much as $173 million a year, with the state’s share at roughly $48 million, early estimates show.
Most bills won widespread approval from the panel of five Republicans and five Democrats, but lawmakers cautioned that more changes are expected next session.
In addition to the new policy proposals, the legislative package would let the committee continue its work for two years and task experts with exploring additional recommendations, including tougher criminal penalties for certain drug offenses.
Sen. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs, sponsored the bill that would allow Denver to establish the safe injection site, which studies from other countries found is successful at preventing some overdoses.
“It’s not a comfortable bill, probably, for anybody,” he said, “but this is a bipartisan approach to what has been declared a national emergency.”
