DENVER — According to Dr. Carl Clark, Colorado has an opioid crisis.
“Some of our rural communities, It’s absolutely devastating but even in Denver where I am we have three opioid deaths every day,” Clark said.
Colorado State Rep. Leslie Herod shares the doctor’s diagnosis.
“The opioid situation in Colorado and in Denver is definitely a crisis,” she said.
It’s a nationwide crisis as well and that is why the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Jerome Adams, is recommending more Americans carry the opioid overdose reversing drug naloxone.
The surgeon general said the number of overdose deaths in the U.S. have doubled from 21,000 in 2010 to 42,000 in 2016.
Some say traditional methods of treatment are not cutting it.
“In the past, it was the jail and the emergency room. That’s a huge problem for all partners who are involved,” Herod said.
Herod said she has no problem getting involved.
“I have Narcan on my desk on the floor in the state Capitol right now,” she said.
The first step in recovery, she says, is staying alive.
There are several ways to obtain naloxone.