opioid crisis

The school board vote comes after nearly a year of activism by a small group of high school students in Durango. School district administrators envision a policy that promotes training and limits legal exposure for schools.

Durango’s 9R school district has proceeded cautiously on whether to permit students to carry an opioid-reversal drug called Narcan. The district has expressed concerns about possible adverse situations if Narcan is used improperly. Medical experts told us there aren’t any overdose scenarios where Narcan shouldn’t be used.

At Durango’s 9R School District, administrators have taken a careful and measured approach to the question of whether to allow students to carry Narcan on campus. One charter high school that operates outside the district has given students a little more leeway on the issue.

Students launched a harm-reduction campaign in Durango to push for permission to carry Narcan on campus and expressed concern about the slow response of administrators. Superintendent Karen Cheser told us that allowing students to carry Narcan is a complex issue, but there has been progress.

After the Durango community lost one teenager to an opioid overdose, many high school students wondered what could be done to prevent another. As a harm-reduction movement emerged, students began pushing for permission to carry Narcan in school. After months of back and forth with school district administrators, teens decided to take their fight for drug policy change public.

A single overdose event in 2021 was the spark that ignited a teen harm reduction movement in Durango. This is an account of two teens who were close to the individuals involved in that event.

The use of Narcan – a life-saving drug that reverses opioid overdoses – has gone up in Cortez in the last year. That’s according to Dennis Delaney, a paramedic at Southwest Memorial Hospital. And lawmakers have been appointed to a new state committee looking at rising utility rates.

Some Colorado families will see a reduction in federal food assistance this month. A temporary increase during the COVID-19 pandemic of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, ended officially on February 19. And a bill to add protections for overdose reporting cleared its first hurdle at the State Capitol yesterday.

Less than a week after announcing that he will run again in 2024 in Colorado's third congressional district race, Adam Frisch, a Democrat from Aspen, has raised more than half a million dollars for his campaign. And lawmakers are considering two measures this week that would address the opioid crisis in Colorado.

Opioids have been a problem in communities across the US for a long time now, but one specific opioid, fentanyl, is causing overdoses at an exponential rate. Some say prevention and addressing trauma are overlooked, but essential, strategies to curb the opioid crisis. On this week’s Health & Prevention Report, KSJD’s Lucas Brady Woods discusses with Katie McClure, the project facilitator for the Southwest Colorado Opioid Overdose Prevention Consortium.