Earlier this year we acknowledged a bit of promising news: For the first time in five years, drug-related deaths in the U.S. declined in 2023.

The decrease was small, just 3%, but taken in the context of the scale of our drug crisis, 3% is nearly 3,500 fewer deaths. And 3,500 fewer deaths is worth taking note of.

Still, 107,543 people died from overdoses in 2023. And more than 81,000 of those deaths were opioid-related, including nearly 75,000 from synthetic opioids like Fentanyl.

And decrease or not, these are deeply unsettling numbers. Overdoses kill more Americans than diabetes. More than guns and car crashes combined. In fact, overdose is the leading cause of death for people under 50 across the country.

In Colorado, 1,292 people died from opioid-related overdoses in 2023, up 132 deaths from the year before, according to data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

And in Boulder County, there were 68 drug-related deaths in 2023, up from 66 the previous year, according to the Boulder County Coroner. What did climb noticeably in Boulder County was fentanyl-related deaths, which jumped from 28 in 2022 to 38 in 2023.

These numbers are made all the more stark when put into a historical context: Two decades ago, in the year 2000, fewer than 20,000 people died from any sort of overdose-related death.

The opioid crisis that has been raging for the last 20-plus years has always been complex and a true response has been in short supply — as evidenced by year after year of record-breaking overdose deaths.

We could have and should have been doing more to address our opioid crisis all along. But now, as the situation continues to spiral out of control and accidental overdoses — or poisonings as many experts have taken to calling them — continue to mount, it is necessary for our community to take action.

As we argued a year ago, the first thing we need to do is stop people from dying. Because the truth is, we are not going to stop the drug trade in Boulder. Municipalities and states and governments have been fighting drug trafficking for decades. Billions of dollars have been poured into the battle. But things just keep getting worse. Drugs keep coming. People continue having the desire and need to procure them. And the deaths keep mounting.

Boulder is not going to get opioids off the street. At least not anytime soon. But we can prevent people from dying — simply by making sure everyone has barrier-free access to naloxone, a nasal spray medicine that reverses an opioid overdose.

(Naloxone is often referred to as Narcan, which is a brand-name product.)

Naloxone, though, is expensive. But the prohibitive cost of a lifesaving medicine should not be the reason anyone in our community dies.

Fortunately, in 2019 Colorado created the Naloxone Bulk Purchase Fund, which has supplied more than half a million doses of the drug to hundreds of organizations and schools. According to the Denver Post, the fund currently provides more than $550,000 worth of naloxone kits to various entities each month. One organization alone estimates that the free kits have helped to save 4,500 lives.

Think about that. Free access to one simply administered drug has helped to save thousands of lives — and those are just the doses provided to one organization. Extrapolate that outward and naloxone’s impact is huge.

However, despite just how vital naloxone is to saving lives, the Naloxone Bulk Purchase Fund no longer has a recurring source of funding.

The Naloxone Bulk Purchase Fund is not the only source of naloxone funding.

“Boulder County Public Health receives naloxone funding directly from the state through our harm reduction program, with free prescriptions available for participants via the WORKS Program. As with all grant-funded activities, future funding is subject to change and we may seek additional grants as needed,” Giselle Noll, the Public Relations Specialist for Boulder County Public Health, said in a statement.

But the value of the fund still can’t be overstated. Colorado should not allow the naloxone fund to run out of money. Especially considering that the state has hundreds of millions of dollars in opioid settlement money coming in — some of which could be redirected to the fund. As of this summer, Colorado had received and distributed more than $110 million of the $750 million it is set to receive, according to the state attorney general’s office.

Most of this money, though, has already been doled out to Colorado’s Regional Opioid Abatement Councils, which are using the money for substance abuse treatment, public education and training for emergency providers.

To be clear, all of these programs, especially substance abuse treatment, are absolutely necessary. They are key weapons in the fight against our drug crisis, and they should be funded as such.

But it is also imperative that we have the necessary tools — specifically naloxone — to save every life possible, in order to get those people into treatment programs. Then we can focus our energies on addiction treatment and providing our community with the support and resources necessary to address the systemic underlying causes of substance use.

A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office, which manages some of the state’s opioid settlement dollars, told the Denver Post that the office “is working on options to ensure that this lifesaving medication can continue to be part of the state’s effort to abate the opioid crisis.”

These options have not been made public, but they should be. And they should include the commonsense possibility of keeping the Naloxone Bulk Purchase Fund fully funded so that the organizations that put this vital drug into people’s hands can continue doing so.

Throughout our community, 38 people died from fentanyl-related overdoses last year. Thirty-eight people with friends and families and co-workers and classmates. That devastation splinters and radiates out into our community. We owe it to each and every one of them to do everything we can to save every life.

Let’s all do our part to learn about naloxone, to bring it into our homes, and to push our leaders to continue providing it to our communities.

As we face this plague of opioids, let’s start by saving every life. Then, and only then, can we begin helping people get the support and treatment they need, getting these deadly drugs off the street, and showing once again that Boulder can lead the way out of this crisis.

— Gary Garrison for the Editorial Board