Help battling addiction

By JACE DICOLA

Jace.DiCola@gjsentinel.com

Opioid addiction and overdose have been a nationwide epidemic since 1999, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Despite inklings of progress, the crisis has largely persisted.

Over the past few years, however, several multistate lawsuits filed against the pharmaceutical companies and distributors who perpetuated the epidemic have been settled.

Those settlements required the defendants to pay billions of dollars into a fund that is distributed across states, explicitly for combating the opioid crisis. A total of $11 million of those settlement dollars were recently awarded through Colorado’s latest round of grants, which focused on infrastructure funding.

“As attorney general, I have prioritized our work addressing the opioid crisis, making important investments in drug treatment, recovery, prevention and education efforts across the state,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in an April press release. “Those investments … are making a difference and saving lives.”

This Sentinel exclusive highlights how the Grand Valley and the surrounding region will benefit from the latest round of grants.

MILLIONS AWARDED FOR MOBILE SOLUTIONS

Despite demand exceeding available funds, more than $2.2 million was directly awarded to entities across northwestern Colorado.

One notable investment was a $500,000 award to Memorial Regional Health — which serves Moffat, Routt and Rio Blanco counties — and Grand County Emergency Medical Services.

The grant was divvied so that Memorial Regional Health will receive $192,000 over the next two years, which Memorial Regional Health Crisis Behavioral Health Manager Austin Hill said the hospital will use to establish an in-house secure transport service for behavioral health patients.

Since crisis and detox services are limited in the region, Hill said that patients seek care at the hospital’s emergency department. When that happens, the hospital is required to transfer the patient to an appropriate facility with a transport service specializing in mental health crises.

“Being so rural and so geographically distant, we sometimes struggle to find placement for our patients. (And both transport providers) we use are coming out of Grand Junction, so if it’s 11 p.m., we often cannot secure transportation until the next day.

“If we can’t get transportation until the next day, we have lost (facility) placement for our patients. Then we’re starting over the next morning. So this will directly increase the access to care that our patients have in rural Colorado,” Hill said.

He added that the hospital is projected to facilitate nearly 90 transports by the end of this year. And if the patient is uninsured, the hospital absorbs the cost, averaging $1,062 per ride.

According to Memorial Regional Health Population Health Director Paula Belcher, providing the service in-house should notably reduce that cost and resulting strain on the rural hospital’s thin margins.

She added that timeliness can substantially impact patient success, since their willingness to enter treatment is often volatile.

The remaining $308,000 will help launch a multi-agency crisis co-response program in Grand County.

According to Grand County EMS Chief Austin Wingate, the program will pair a specially trained paramedic with a mental health clinician to respond to locals experiencing a mental, behavioral or substance-related crisis.“It is designed to deliver the right care, in the right place, at the right time by prioritizing stabilization, clinical assessment, and connection to community-based services rather than default transport to the emergency department or jail,” Wingate said in a statement to the Sentinel.

EXPANDING ACCESS BEYOND GRAND JUNCTION

An additional $509,000 was awarded to the same region to expand addiction recovery and prevention infrastructure.

According to Bri Robles, who leads the northwest opioid council on behalf of the Steadman Group, the money will expand peer recovery support and stabilize sober living capacity across the region.

See ADDICTION, page 4A ➤

The Counseling and Education Center is transforming the five-bed, four-bath home in Orchard Mesa, 2702 B½ Road, into a new practice site, bringing mental health care into a neighborhood that CEC Executive Director Hali Nurnberg said currently has zero local access. The CEC was one of the entities across northwestern Colorado to receive some of the $2.2 million in opiod settlement funds.

COURTESY OF THE COUNSELING AND EDUCATION CENTER

Mesa County Sheriff’s Office reported the seizure of 220,000 fentanyl pills in July 2024. Fentanyl is one of the many opiods flooding the streets across America and the availability of those opiods has been a nationwide endemic since 1999. Over the past few years, several multi-state lawsuits filed against the pharmaceutical companies and distributors who perpetuated the epidemic have been settled. Some of that money will be used in Western Colorado for combating the opioid crisis.

MESA COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE

➤ Continued from page 1A

Specifically, she said the funds will be spent on bolstering communications and awareness of services among locals, as well as expanding personnel across three recovery organizations: the faith-based Travis House in Steamboat Springs, the women-exclusive Love Life sober living home in Steamboat and the multi-faceted Health Partnerships organization serving Routt and Moffat counties.

She added that there are sustainability plans in place to ensure the new positions are preserved after the funding dries up.

“Being in rural Colorado, it’s tough to build your workforce, especially around substance use services, prevention, treatment and recovery,” Robles said. “But expanding the workforce … really offers the community a broader way to access those services.”

Nearly $700,000 was awarded to YouthZone, an organization serving at-risk and justice-involved juveniles across Rifle, Glenwood Springs, Carbondale and Aspen.

The funding will support extensive renovations of its Rifle office, 136 E. 12th St., which YouthZone Development Director Ali Naaseh-Shahry said is approaching the end of its useful lifecycle. Last year’s emergency roof repairs were just one of many indicators.

According to Naaseh- Shahry, roughly 60% of their clientele in the justice system were charged with drug or alcohol use or possession. Among many other family services, he said the organization facilitates diversion and restorative justice programming that focuses on education and addiction recovery.

Naaseh-Shahry added that their program participants avoid recidivism at roughly double the national average, with between 80% and 90% of clientele staying out of trouble while engaged with YouthZone.

Mesa County received roughly $500,000 in recent infrastructure awards, which will help establish access to mental health care in Orchard Mesa through the Counseling and Education Center.

According to CEC Executive Director Hali Nurnberg, behavioral health care providers are already sparse in Mesa County. Compounding the issue, she said, existing providers are located exclusively along downtown Grand Junction and stretches of Patterson Road.

While a few outliers can be found in Fruita and Palisade, Nurnberg said that she cannot identify a single behavioral or mental health provider in the Orchard Mesa area.

“And there are nearly 7,000 residents (in that neighborhood). When you look at the demographics of Orchard Mesa, (residents have) a much higher rent burden, more non-traditional families … and a high suicide burden.

“We also realize that there are several schools there, and it’s the first neighborhood on your way into town from the southern parts of the county … like Whitewater, which has no services,” Nurnberg said. With the expansion, she added that the CEC’s

See ADDICTION, page 5A ➤

The Behavioral Health Administrative Service Organizations (BHASOs) comprise four regions that will enable localized entities to manage services on behalf of the Behavioral Health Administration. Colorado’s Behavioral Health Administration received $712,500 from opiod settlement funds earmarked for statewide “crisis system modernization.” According to BHA Commissioner Stephanie Beasley, the money will help withdrawal management (detox) sites make the capital upgrades required to prescribe controlled substances and operate a comprehensive “behavioral health crisis center.”

COURTESY OF THE BEHAVIORAL HEALTH ADMINISTRATION

Packages of suspected fentanyl are stacked after it was seized during a traffic stop near Parachute in September 2024. Millions of dollars in opiod settlemnet funds will be used to help fund mobile solutions in some of the more rural areas of Moffat, Routt and Rio Blanco counties.

GARFIELD COUNTY SHERIFF PHOTO