A state-record-breaking Drug Enforcement Administration fentanyl seizure reported by the Gazette Monday illustrates why more action is needed — including a pending ballot measure — to fight the fatal and far-reaching opioid endemic. 

The flooding of fentanyl across Colorado remains so rampant, a Douglas County man happened across nearly 2 million fentanyl pills after purchasing an abandoned storage unit at auction. The unit was flush with totes full of around 1.7 million pills — including “fake” pills designed and labeled to look like other prescription drugs — 12 kilograms of powdered fentanyl, and 2.5 pounds of methamphetamine. 

It goes down as the sixth-largest fentanyl bust in United States history. And it’s all connected, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation said, to a known drug carrier arrested in April — when payments on the unit abruptly stopped — as part of a CBI investigation of the infamous Sinaloa cartel in Mexico.

David Olesky, special agent in charge for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Rocky Mountain Field Division, hammered home two terrifying realities underscored by the case: Mexican cartels continue to traffic significant quantities of fentanyl to Colorado. And thousands of lives were saved with the seizure.

Alas, it’s crystal clear the fentanyl fight must be ramped up. 

A big step is a citizens ballot initiative authored by the group Advance Colorado. Today on the steps of the Ralph L. Carr Judicial Center in Denver, Advance is slated to announce that more than 200,000 Colorado voters’ signatures have been gathered and turned in supporting a November 2026 ballot measure that will crack down on the flow of fentanyl.

The tentatively titled Initiative 85 would make the sale of any amount of fentanyl, however small, a class-1 felony. It would confront lowlife street peddlers as well as cartel-caliber criminals like those who stashed their product in the storage unit — with the increased deterrent of eight to 32 years in prison.

The proposal also would mandate treatment for users if they don’t want a felony on their record. Advance believes (and we agree) that it incentivizes recovery.

Under current law, dealers can possess up to a gram of fentanyl and, so long as they claim they’re not selling the stuff, it’s only a misdemeanor.

The legislature’s passage of House Bill 22-1326 in 2022 had made possession of fentanyl with intent to distribute a class-2 felony — with a prison term of four to 16 years for four to 50 grams of the drug, and up to 32 years for 50 grams or more. But possession of under one gram — enough to kill 500 people in fentanyl’s pure form — still meant only 180 days in jail and up to two years of probation for a first offense. And it remains less than a year for a repeat offender.

The 2022 legislation was a feeble attempt to backpedal following sweeping 2019 legislation that had decriminalized a wide range of deadly drugs. Signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis, the measure had made it only a misdemeanor to possess up to four grams of most drugs, including fentanyl, for personal use. 

HB 22-1326 was a baby step by the legislature to rein in this deadly opioid that has killed so many young Coloradans. But the legislature has refused to go any further to fix what it broke.

That’s why voters have to take up the fight on their own. Advance’s ballot proposal will let them sidestep an out-of-touch legislature — to stem the tide of the opioid epidemic.