In Rock Canyon High School, senior Bhavya Surapaneni said it is the norm to walk in on her fellow students vaping in the bathrooms, hear stories of their weekend binge drinking and occasionally watch her peers be suspended for possessing illicit drugs — sent home with nothing more than a brochure on the dangers of substance abuse. 

Though they’ve received education aimed at preventing substance use since middle school, Surapaneni said substance abuse still runs rampant among her peers, and efforts to help students who already struggle are “virtually nonexistent.”

DPS enrollment dips, mirroring statewide drop in students

“Intervention is not a priority in many schools, including mine,” Surapaneni said. “Substance abuse is pushed to the side, dealt with as quickly and quietly as possible, without any emphasis on treatment.” 

Now, Surapaneni is working to change that.

Surapaneni and the other members of the Colorado Youth Advisory Council helped draft House Bill 1009. If passed by the state legislature, the bill would create a committee tasked with developing best practices for middle and high schools to identify students who need substance use treatment, offer intervention and refer the students to treatment resources.

Colorado is the seventh most pervasive state for substance abuse in the country, according to a 2022 study. Colorado teenagers are also 37.4% more likely to have used drugs in the last month and 15.1% more likely to use alcohol than the average American teenager, according to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics.

Colorado community colleges could soon issue high school diplomas

“Every single young person, including myself, can point to at least one peer who struggles with substances,” said Siddharth Nareddy, a student at Peak to Peak High School and another member of the Youth Advisory Council. “This bill is a necessary investment in the future of Colorado.”

The bill would aim to combat the use of alcohol, nicotine, marijuana, prescription drugs and illicit drugs. The committee would have until Jan. 5, 2024 to submit its report to every school district and charter school in the state, as well as the Colorado Department of Education. The committee would consist of 16 people, including students, parents, school staff and medical professionals.

The committee would start by building off of and modifying the state’s existing Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) Program, which is already in place at some of Colorado’s school-based health centers and is designed to detect early substance use disorders in students and refer them for treatment. The bill would not implement any programs in schools, leaving the final decision up to the schools and school districts.

The House Education Committee voted 7-4 in support of the bill Wednesday morning, advancing the bill to the House Appropriations Committee for further consideration.

The vote was split along party lines, with Democrats in support and Republicans in opposition. Some Republican opponents raised issue with the bill not explicitly requiring the best practices developed by the committee to include notifying a student’s parents if the student is abusing substances. 

Proposal to require 36 hours of driver's ed, training for Colorado teens advances

“My concern really is that once a student has been identified by the school as having a substance abuse issue, I don’t see that the parents are immediately contacted and involved in the therapy,” said Rep. Mary Bradfield, R-Colorado Springs. “If you could address that in the bill, I think many of us would feel better.”

Rep. Rose Pugliese, R-Colorado Springs, also argued that the $54,000 to fund the bill should come from the state’s Marijuana Tax Cash Fund instead of the General Fund — which bill sponsor Rep. Mandy Lindsay, D-Aurora, said she would look in to.

Half a dozen organizations spoke or registered in support of the bill Wednesday: Children’s Hospital Colorado, the Colorado Education Association, Colorado Psychiatric Society, Colorado Society of School Psychologists, Peer Assistance Services and Mental Health Colorado. No witnesses spoke in opposition.

“This is one step and this is one piece of the solution,” Lindsay said. “We cannot let these problems go unaddressed. … Our kids are clamoring for help and support. It’s best that we listen to them.”