In the years since Colorado legalized multiple lethal drugs, including fentanyl, the rate of drug overdoses in the state has skyrocketed.
As reported by Breitbart, the Democrat-controlled state legislature of Colorado previously legalized the possession of fentanyl, as well as cocaine, heroin, and meth, in 2019. The new law reduced the crime of possessing more than four milligrams of fentanyl a misdemeanor instead of a felony, as it had been previously. This is despite the Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) warning that it only takes two milligrams of the drug to kill a person.
In the one-year time span between September 2020 and September 2021, 1,825 Colorado residents died from various drug overdoses. The previous year saw 350 fewer deaths. The latest incident saw five people, two men and three women, die in a single incident in the same apartment this week in Commerce City; all five died from overdosing on fentanyl. A sixth person was found still alive, along with an infant, and both were taken to a hospital.
Fentanyl overdoses have been the leading cause of death among Americans for the last two years. Nearly 79,000 Americans died from fentanyl alone in 2020, while 42,000 were killed by the same drug in 2021. Deaths from all drug overdoses accounted for over 100,000 deaths in the United States between April 2020 and April 2021. These numbers are higher than the total number of Americans killed by guns and car crashes combined.
The top source of fentanyl in the United States is immigration, with Mexico being the biggest producer of the drug. Mass immigration across the southern border, particularly due to the Biden Administration’s open-borders policy, subsequently allows for large shipments of the drug to be sneaked into the country for distribution.