A veto threat from Colorado Gov. Jared Polis’ office helped sink a renewed effort to launch supervised drug-use sites as a legislative committee signed off Monday on a slew of other drug policy reforms for consideration in next year’s session.
Once again, lawmakers stopped short of advancing a controversial measure sought by some advocates and public health officials. The sanctioned sites are seen as a tool to reduce overdose deaths by allowing drug users to legally consume illicit substances under the supervision of staff.
Rep. Chris deGruy Kennedy, the chair of the Opioid and Other Substance Use Disorders Study Committee, said Polis’ office issued the veto threat on the bill last week, three days before the committee was set to meet for a final time. Polis’ office also called Sen. Kyle Mullica, a swing vote on the supervised use issue who had worked with deGruy Kennedy throughout the summer on a compromise.
Mullica voted against the policy Monday. The draft had proposed to give the state oversight and to require local government approval before any facilities, called safe-use sites by advocates, could open within a jurisdiction.
Mullica, who voted against a similar policy in April over regulatory concerns, joined with fellow Democratic Rep. Mary Young and the committee’s four Republicans in sinking the measure.
Advocates, many public health officials and several Democrats have repeatedly pushed the policy in recent years to combat the state’s ongoing fentanyl crisis. But Republicans, law enforcement officials and moderate Democrats have steadily opposed and defeated the proposal, stopping efforts in Denver to pilot such sites.
“This isn’t really a resource question with this bill,” said deGruy Kennedy, a Lakewood Democrat. “This is giving permission for an organization that’s ready to do this, to go do it. And I’m incredibly disappointed that it’s not going to be moving forward today. … Here’s to saving more lives next year.”
The committee approved four other measures aimed at preventing overdoses and substance use while improving treatment offerings statewide. Three passed the study committee with bipartisan support.
Each bill broadly addresses a particular area of drug policy: treatment, harm reduction, prevention or recovery. If approved during the legislative session, which begins in January, the bills would improve access to key opioid treatment medications, expand a proven but underutilized methamphetamine treatment, bolster health funding for prisons and jails, and broaden legal immunity protections and flexibility for organizations that work with drug users.
The bills also would improve screening of kids for substance use in schools and in pediatricians’ offices. A final interim committee will review the draft bills before they proceed to the full legislature.
Taken together, the bills mark a significant return by the legislature to drug policy, 18 months after a bruising fight over criminal penalties for fentanyl possession. They are emerging amid an ongoing overdose crisis fueled by fentanyl and methamphetamine.
“These bills will be extremely impactful,” said Jose Esquibel, the director of the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention. ” … We still have a crisis to deal with. There’s still plenty of room for policy to help us do the work we need to do.”
As for the rejected supervised-use measure, it’s unclear how influential Polis’ veto threat was in the outcome. Young voted in favor of a similar proposal earlier this year and said she supported the science underpinning supervised-use sites. But concerns from constituents swayed her to vote no, she said — not the governor.
DeGruy Kennedy, meanwhile, said Polis’ message “100%” had an impact. DeGruy Kennedy had hammered out amendments with Mullica, including limiting any facilities to Denver only. The ink wasn’t yet dry when Polis’ office called, he said.
Mullica said concerns from the governor and others “make it hard to move forward today.”
In a statement, Polis spokesman Conor Cahill said the governor “has been clear with Coloradans and the legislature that he is opposed to these drug use sites.” He also said there was “great uncertainty” about federal law conflicting with the facilities.
A federal prosecutor in New York, which opened the first sanctioned facilities in the country two years ago, warned that he planned to take action against them. Those facilities remain open, and Rhode Island is preparing to open approved sites.
Lisa Raville, the executive director of the Harm Reduction Action Center and a leading proponent of supervised sites, called Monday’s committee vote “incredibly disappointing.”
She’d stared at the ceiling as some legislators explained their decisions to vote no.
The defeat does not completely sink the policy’s chances during next year’s legislative session. An individual legislator could propose it again, though Polis’ opposition almost certainly dooms any effort.
Rep. Elisabeth Epps, a Denver Democrat who co-sponsored the supervised-use sites bill that failed earlier this year, said Monday that she was considering resurrecting the measure and would decide after discussing it more with advocates.
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