The next pandemic has hit Colorado, but this time it’s not a virus. It’s meth. And it’s imperiling not only its users but also the rest of the public.
It seems hardly a week goes by without yet another methamphetamine-contaminated public library making the news. Four of them have closed to the public for now in the Denver metro area alone after tests uncovered meth residue in them.
The latest closure was just last Friday in Arvada. The closures prompted the Pikes Peak Library District in the state’s No. 2 metro area to announce it would conduct extensive testing of its branches for meth residue.
Meanwhile in Boulder, the Regional Transportation District closed the restrooms and ticket office at its downtown Boulder bus terminal last month until further notice.
The transit agency posted on its website it had “confirmed levels of methamphetamine and/or similar substances exceeding Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) limits in both restrooms as well as the adjacent hallway.”
As The Gazette noted in an in-depth report last week, the incidents of contamination that have made headlines represent only the tip of the iceberg.
Drug contamination in general is becoming a pervasive and pernicious problem in our state, The Gazette reports. Drug residue is turning up in gas stations, restaurants, grocery and convenience stores — the list goes on.
How bad is methamphetamine’s mess in particular? Business is booming for drug-decontamination services. The president of a meth lab remediation and biorecovery company in Denver told The Gazette his company used to travel the country to clean spaces. But his employees haven't left the state in five years because there is so much work in Colorado.
Some research has found that meth residue can persist on a surface for months or years, and decontamination is costly and time consuming.
If it permeates paint and insulation behind walls, cleanup can run into the tens of thousands of dollars and take months. That’s a lot of tax dollars and downtime for users of the tainted public facilities.
It makes you wonder if even mask mandates will return at some point in public buildings.
Unlike the last pandemic, however, this one seems to be at least partly the fault of our state’s policymakers. Notably, their tolerance for — and indulgence of — Colorado’s proliferating drug culture.
The Legislature’s decriminalization in 2019 of possession of hard drugs, including meth and fentanyl, coupled with legislation reducing penalties for a host of other crimes, has contributed to a climate of rampant drug use.
It was only a matter of time before meth users would brazenly carry their habits into library and bus station restrooms as well as private businesses and other places they find convenient.
They then leave such places unusable for others. Increasingly, the public risks exposure whether it’s library story time or grabbing a gallon of milk on the way home from work. It’s an insult to law-abiding Coloradans.
Meth is a powerful and highly addictive drug often sold in powder or crystal form. The stimulant offers a longer-lasting high and can be cheaper than other illegal drugs. It can be abused in different ways — ingesting, injecting, smoking, snorting.
And it can be deadly.
In 2021, meth contributed to 734 overdose deaths in Colorado. More people died from meth overdoses in 2021 than from heroin, cocaine, prescription-pill and alcohol overdoses combined.
It’s bad enough users are so recklessly placing themselves at risk. It’s outrageous that our easy-drug culture puts the rest of the public in jeopardy, too.
When will our lawmakers begin to take Colorado’s drug pandemic seriously?