Colorado lawmakers kill supervised drug site bill in Senate

Colorado lawmakers have again rejected a bill that would allow supervised drug use sites to open in willing cities — the third time in a year that lawmakers have overruled the proposal.

On Thursday evening, two Democratic senators joined the three Republicans on the Senate Health and Human Service Committee in voting to kill people. House Bill 1028, two weeks after it passed the House. The measure would have allowed the facilities — where drug users could ingest illegal substances under the supervision of medical staff — to open in Denver. In the state capital, The number of fatal overdoses increased by 30% last year compared to 2022.

“This bill gives our community the opportunity to use this life-saving tool,” Sen. Kevin Priola, a Democrat from Henderson, told fellow senators. He co-sponsored the bill with Rep. Elisabeth Epps, a Denver Democrat. “To be clear: there is no mandate. Let’s put local control in the hands of the communities that know best how to reduce overdose deaths.”

A similar bill also passed the House of Representatives last year before dying in the same Senate committee. Another effort, a more moderate approach crafted in an interim commission, was shelved in October after Governor Jared Polis — a known opponent of the policy — threatened an early veto.

The same interim committee has introduced four other bills intended to address substance use; all four have gone through various stages of approval at the Capitol, though none have yet fully cleared the building.

Sen. Lisa Cutter, a Democrat from Littleton, said Thursday that her niece died of an overdose in the back of a car.