Analysis: Metro Denver drug overdoses up 91 percent since 2018; Highest rate in Colorado state history

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) decriminalized fentanyl in 2019; Jorge Alexander Che-Quiab, an illegal immigrant, was found guilty of supplying fentanyl to a 16 year-old girl in Arapahoe County. She died of an overdose. | Wikipedia/Arapahoe County Sheriff

By Centennial State News reports

Aug 31, 2022

Drug overdoses have spiked by 91 percent in Denver's suburbs since 2018, soaring to the highest levels ever recorded by Colorado county officials.

That's according to a Centennial State News analysis of county coroner reports from Jefferson, Arapahoe, Douglas and Denver Counties.

Collectively, the four counties, which comprise some 2.3 million people, saw 209 drug overdoses in 2018. That number nearly doubled to 450 in 2021.

Denver County (+115%), Douglas County (+113%) and Jefferson County (+101%) saw the largest increases.

The Denver drug overdose spike followed a 2019 bill signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis (D) decriminalizing possession of most drugs in the state. That included the dangerous fentanyl, which medical experts say is 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine.

Englewood Police Chief Brian Cousineau told Rocky Mountain PBS fentanyl is "frequently found in 'blues," slang for drugs including Valium and Xanax, taken to treat anxiety.

According to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, state fentanyl deaths, a sub-set of total drug overdose deaths, have risen from 75 in 2018 to 912 in 2021, a 1,200 percent increase.

Polis, an outspoken advocate of drug legalization, was first elected governor of Colorado in 2018. He's a Boulder native.

Worst in the suburbs

Since the law's passage, drug overdoses have plagued communities across Colorado. But the problem has been most pronounced in the Denver suburbs.

Some 14 months after they were decriminalized, Littleton police found 692 fentanyl pills in a plastic bag in Tanya Bui's bedroom nightstand drawer. She was sentenced July 15 to ten years in a federal prison for possession of fentanyl with intent to distribute, prosecuted under federal, not state, law.

Days later, 25 year-old Jorge Alexander Che-Quiab was handing out pills laced with fentanyl at a party he hosted at an Aurora apartment, attended by local high school girls who thought it was oxycontin, also an opioid. One of them, a 16 year-old, overdosed and died. He was charged with murder and sexual assault.

Last month, Che-Quiab, a Mexican national and former Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient, was sentenced to 64 years in a Colorado prison.

In Dec. 2020, after his arrest, the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tried to detain Che-Quiab for deportation, but was prevented by Polis per the Colorado's "Sanctuary State" law.

In July, police found 114 pounds of fentanyl powder in the back of a car traveling towards Denver along I-70. Federal officials called it "the largest fentanyl seizure on any U.S. highway."

In early August, Douglas County deputies found 1,000 fentanyl pills after pulling over a vehicle in the Meridian area.

Polis is running for re-election this year, facing Camp Bow Wow founder Heidi Ganahl of Lone Tree, in Douglas County.

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Drug Overdose Deaths in Denver Metro, 2018-2021

Drug-overdose deaths have soared in metro Denver since the decriminalization of fentanyl in 2019.

Gov. Jared Polis,

	Jefferson	Arapahoe	Douglas	Denver	Total
2018	86	119	16	209	430
2019	97	111	13	225	446
2020	159	153	33	370	715
2021	173	166	34	450	823
TOTAL	515	549	96	1,254	2,414

4 year increase	101%	39%	113%	115%	91%