Colorado
Opinion: Colorado must invest in evidence-based policies to prevent harm from substances, not costly criminalization
Across the nation, the opioid epidemic has wreaked havoc on the health and lives of far too many, and Colorado is no exception. According to Mental Health America, Colorado ranks fourth and seventh in the country for adults and youth with substance use disorders, respectively. That means thousands of our friends, neighbors and loved ones are living with addiction and can’t get the help they need. Overdose deaths in Colorado have risen sharply since 2019, largely due to the proliferation of fentanyl, with 1,603 deaths in 2024 alone, according to the state.
It’s a public health crisis, and one we’re now at risk of making even worse. Last month, supporters turned in signatures to send Initiative #85 to the 2026 ballot, a measure that would increase criminal penalties for fentanyl crimes. We feel this threatens to drag us backward toward the failed policies and practices of the past rather than working toward a healthier future.
At the same time, state and federal funding for treatment and prevention is drying up. The recently passed federal spending bill HR1 will mean devastating changes to Medicaid, gutting the single most important source of funding for substance use treatment in the country. For the past several years, as more states have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid has emerged as the leading source of coverage for addiction treatment in the nation.
A recent Brookings study found that nearly 90% of treatment for opioid addiction is paid for, at least in part, by Medicaid. These cuts will leave our already strained systems unable to meet the growing demand, particularly for low-income and disabled individuals who will have fewer treatment options and more barriers to care.
Meanwhile, Colorado faced a $1.2 billion budget shortfall this year, and even more deficits are on the horizon for 2026. The state is stuck in a cycle of annual budget shortfalls of roughly $1 billion, making it increasingly difficult to cover existing programs and skyrocketing Medicaid costs. That means fewer resources to fill in federal funding gaps, a fraying behavioral health safety net, and an increasingly stressed population that is highly vulnerable to substance use and harm.
Given this grim picture, it’s never been more critical to prioritize smart, effective policy to combat the overdose crisis. We should be focusing our scarce funding on evidence-based substance use prevention, treatment and recovery support, not costly, ineffective drug war criminalization policies that are historically discriminatory in their implementation and proven to fail.
Mitigating and reversing the drug addiction crisis in Colorado and across the nation is complex and has to involve multiple strategies working in tandem to decrease supply and demand. While increasing criminal penalties related to drug addiction among individuals may seem like a tough-on-crime approach, it has not and will not resolve the drug addiction crisis nor dissolve the supply or the demand for illicit drugs.
Decades of data show that criminalizing substance users doesn’t reduce addiction or overdose. Recently, researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz found the following: “Intensified drug enforcement laws have little deterrent effect on substance use and may worsen health outcomes. Fear of being arrested fosters riskier substance use behaviors and increased overdose risk. Incarceration and the subsequent stigma experienced by people with substance use disorder work in tandem to create barriers for treatment access and worsen mental health, creating a structurally reinforced cycle of isolation.”
The research is clear. Harsh penalties haven’t protected our communities from the dangers of fentanyl. They have only compounded harm and pushed people deeper into the shadows, making it harder to seek help, and saddling individuals with felony records that create lifelong barriers to employment, housing, and recovery.
Policies like the proposed 2026 ballot measure to increase felony charges for drug possession are not just misguided — they cost taxpayer dollars. They further overburden law enforcement agencies, flood jails, courtrooms and prisons that are already beyond their capacity, and ultimately do nothing to address the core of the opioid epidemic.
Instead of doubling down on punishing people who use substances, we need to expand what works: prevention programs in schools and communities, access to harm reduction tools like naloxone, and a robust continuum of care that includes outpatient and residential treatment. We need more support for peer recovery professionals, more public education and more investment in what keeps people healthy, which includes housing, food security and opportunities for connection. We need to act together, with assertive intelligence, to disrupt the black market drug trafficking that is the enemy of the people.
The opioid crisis is a public health crisis and demands a public health response. Colorado has the knowledge, data and tools to build a more effective and compassionate system. But we cannot do it if we are bleeding out resources to punitive policies that fail the people they claim to help.
Let’s not go backward. Let’s invest in health and safety and give Coloradans a real chance at recovery.
Vincent Atchity, of Denver, is the president and CEO of Mental Health Colorado.
José Esquibel, of Jefferson County, is the former vice chair of the Colorado Substance Abuse Trend and Response Task Force.
The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.
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A Boulder County man was sentenced to 48 years in prison for murdering his ex-girlfriend and dumping her body in 2024.
The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office said Christine Barron Olivas’s body was discovered in a remote area of unincorporated Boulder County on Sept. 14, 2024. She was last seen leaving the neighborhood with her boyfriend, Carlos Dosal, the week prior.
The coroner’s office determined the cause of her death was strangulation.
In Feb. 2026, Dosal pleaded guilty to second-degree murder as a crime of domestic violence in her death. On Saturday, the judge sentenced him to 48 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections.
Leading the Way
Nate the Great
MacKinnon is tied for fifth in the NHL in points (10), while ranking tied for seventh in goals (4) and tied for ninth in assists (6).
All Hail Cale
Cale Makar is tied for first in goals (4) among NHL defensemen,
Toewser Laser
Among NHL blueliners, Devon Toews is tied for third in points (7) while ranking tied for fifth in assists (5) and tied for sixth in goals (2).
Series History
The Avalanche and Wild have met in the playoffs on three previous occasions, all in the Round One, with Minnesota winning in 2003 and 2014 in seven games while Colorado was victorious in six contests in 2008.
Making Plays Against Minnesota
MacKinnon has posted 16 points (4g/12a) in nine playoff games against the Wild, in addition to 70 points (27g/43a) in 55 regular-season contests.
Makar has registered three points (2g/1a) in two playoff contests against Minnesota, along with 26 points (6g/20a) in 29 regular-season games.
Necas has recorded five points (1g/4a) in two playoff games against the Wild, in addition to nine points (5g/4a) in 15 regular-season games.
Scoring in the Twin Cities
Quinn Hughes is tied for the Wild lead in points (11) and assists (8) while ranking tied for second in goals (3).
Kaprizov is tied for first on the Wild in assists (8) and points (11) while ranking tied for second in goals (3).
Matt Boldy leads the Wild in goals (6) while ranking third in points (10) and tied for fourth in assists (4).
A Numbers Game
4.50
Colorado’s 4.50 goals per game on the road in the playoffs are tied for the most in the NHL.
39
MacKinnon’s 39 playoff goals since 2020-21 are the second most in the NHL.
2.17
The Avalanche’s 2.17 goals against per game in the playoffs are the second fewest in the NHL.
Quote That Left a Mark
“It should definitely get you up and excited. It’s gonna be a good test. [It’s a] great building and [it’s] against a desperate team. It’s gonna be great.”
— Gabriel Landeskog on playing in Minnesota
Colorado
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signs state budget, with Medicaid taking brunt of cuts to close $1.5 billion gap
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Friday, May 8, signed into law a $46.8 billion state budget that cuts healthcare spending but preserves funding for K-12 education.
The budget applies to the 2026-27 fiscal year, which begins on July 1, and caps months of work by lawmakers, who wrestled with how to close a roughly $1.5 billion gap that ultimately forced reductions to Medicaid funding and other programs.
“This year was incredibly difficult and challenged each of us in a myriad of ways that put our values to the test,” said Rep. Emily Sirtota, a Denver Democrat and chair of the bipartisan Joint Budget Committee, which crafts the state’s spending plan before it is voted on by the full legislature. “It’s a zero-sum game. A dollar here means a dollar less over here.”
The state’s spending gap was the result of several factors.
The legislature is limited in how it can spend under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, an amendment to the state constitution approved by voters in 1992 that limits government revenue growth to the rate of population growth plus inflation.
Lawmakers are also dealing with the consequences of increased spending on programs they created or expanded in recent years, some of which have seen their costs balloon beyond their original estimates. Costs for Medicaid services, in particular, have surged, driven by inflation, expanded benefits and greater demand for expensive, long-term care services due to Colorado’s aging population.
Medicaid cuts
Medicaid recently eclipsed K-12 education as the single-largest chunk of the state’s general fund and now accounts for roughly one-third of all spending from that fund.
Lawmakers, who are required by the state constitution to pass a deficit-free budget, said they had no choice but to cut Medicaid funding as a result.
That includes a 2% reduction to the state’s reimbursement rate for most Medicaid providers. The budget also institutes a $3,000 cap on adult dental benefits, limits billable hours for at-home caregivers of family members with severe disabilities to 56 hours per week and phases out, by Jan. 1, automatic enrollment for children with disabilities to receive 24/7 care as adults.
The budget also cuts benefits and places new limits on Cover All Coloradans, a program created by the legislature in 2022 that provides identical coverage as Medicaid to low-income immigrant children and pregnant women, regardless of their immigration status.
That includes an end to long-term care services for new enrollees, a $1,100 limit on dental benefits, and an annual enrollment cap of 25,000 for children 18 or younger. The cuts come as spending on the program has grown more than 600% beyond its original estimate, going from roughly $14.7 million to an estimated $104.5 million for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
While the budget still represents an overall increase in Medicaid spending compared to this year, funding is roughly half of what it would have been had lawmakers not made any changes to benefits and provider rates, which total about $270 million in savings for the state.
Healthcare leaders say the cuts will exacerbate an already challenging environment for providers, who are bracing for less federal support after Congress last year passed sweeping Medicaid cuts and declined to renew enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.
For rural hospitals in particular, Medicaid is one of their key funding drivers.
“While a 2% (Medicaid reimbursement rate cut) doesn’t sound like a whole lot, when we already have close to 50% of our rural hospitals statewide operating in the red and 70% with unsustainable margins, facing another 2% (cut) on top of that is just devastating,” said Michelle Mills, CEO for the Colorado Rural Health Center, which represents rural hospitals on the Western Slope and Eastern Plains.
If the state provides less reimbursement for Medicaid services, Mills said it will lead to fewer providers accepting Medicaid plans. That in turn will mean fewer care options for people, particularly in Colorado’s rural counties, where healthcare services are already more limited.
“I feel like all of the decisions and cuts that they’re making are hitting everyone,” she said.
Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican and budget committee member, said cuts to healthcare led to “a lot of tears.”
“This was a tough budget, and nobody won in this budget, but we did what we had to do by way of the (state) constitution,” he said.
While Medicaid saw some of the biggest cuts, lawmakers also trimmed spending from a suite of other programs, including financial aid for adoptive parents and grants providing mental health support for law enforcement.
Preserving K-12 education
One of the brighter spots for Polis and lawmakers in the budget is K-12 education.
After years of chronically underfunding the state’s schools, lawmakers in 2024 rolled out a revamped funding formula and abolished what was known as the budget stabilization factor, a Great Recession-era mechanism that had allowed the state to skirt its constitutional funding obligation to schools for more than a decade.
The new funding formula went into effect this school year, and the state is set to continue delivering higher levels of K-12 funding in the 2026-27 fiscal year budget. The budget allocates roughly $10.19 billion in K-12 funding, an increase of roughly $194.8 million, though the specifics of that spending are still being worked out in a separate bill, the 2026 School Finance Act, which has yet to pass the legislature.
The finance act guides how state and local funds are allocated to Colorado’s 178 school districts on a per-pupil basis. As it stands now, the bill is on track to increase per-pupil funding by $440 per student for the 2026-27 fiscal year, for a total of $12,314 per student.
“We are not returning to the days of underfunding our schools and a budget stabilization factor,” Polis said.
Still, there are challenges on the horizon for some districts.
Combined with a proposed three-year averaging model for student counts instead of the current four-year averaging, recent dips in student enrollment across the state will weigh more heavily on how much funding is allocated to each district. The shift to three-year averaging advances the state’s plan to gradually phase in the new school finance formula by 2030-31.
With several districts seeing decreased year-over-year enrollment and rising operational expenses like healthcare, some Western Slope school districts are poised to see less funding compared to this year, while others are seeing their increases eaten up by inflation.
A note on wolves
The topic of Colorado’s spending on gray wolf reintroduction hasn’t gone away, and while Medicaid headlined much of the budget discussions, lawmakers also used the spending plan to send a message on the future of the wolf program.
While the budget allocates $2.1 from the general fund to Colorado Parks and Wildlife to spend on wolf reintroduction, it also contains a footnote from lawmakers asking the agency not to use the money to acquire new wolves.
Footnotes are not legally binding, but rather serve as a direction or guidance from lawmakers to agencies on how they want certain funds spent.
Under the footnote, the wildlife agency could still use gifts, grants, donations and non-license revenue from its wildlife cash fund to bring additional wolves to Colorado. Most of the agency’s wolf funding goes toward personnel, followed by operating costs, compensation for ranchers and conflict minimization programs and tools.
Education reporter Andrea Teres-Martinez and wildlife and environmental reporter Ali Longwell contributed to this story.
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