‘Die-in’ activists at Colorado Capitol raise awareness of drug overdose deaths

As tourists milled about the Colorado Capitol on Thursday, staffers strode to committee rooms and maintenance staff polished ornate brass adornments, about a dozen people silently lay across the grand first-floor staircase with their eyes closed for over four minutes, an act of remembrance for loved ones who died from a drug overdose.

The “die-in” marked International Overdose Awareness Day, a campaign to remember without stigma people who died from an overdose and, in the case of those at the Capitol, call for policy action to quell overdose deaths.

Demonstrators, including Rep. Elisabeth Epps (bottom right) and Rep.-elect Tim Hernández (bottom left), laid on the Capitol steps on Aug. 31, 2023 for 288 seconds in honor of the number of people in Denver who have died of an overdose in 2023 so far. (Sara Wilson/Colorado Newsline)

Rep. Elisabeth Epps speaks at the Colorado Capitol on International Overdose Awareness Day on Aug. 31, 2023. (Sara Wilson/Colorado Newsline)

Demonstrators led a "die-in" at the Colorado Capitol on International Overdose Awareness Day on Aug. 31, 2023. (Sara Wilson/Colorado Newsline)

Jennifer Dillon speaks in front of the Colorado Capitol on Aug. 31, 2023 (Sara Wilson/Colorado Newsline)

The Harm Reduction Action Center in Denver invited people to write the names of loved ones who died of a drug overdose for International Overdose Awareness Day on Aug. 31, 2023. (Sara Wilson/Colorado Newsline)

Volunteers with the Harm Reduction Action Center in Denver hand out naloxone, a nasal spray that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, on Aug. 31, 2023. (Sara Wilson/Colorado Newsline)

Deanna Guerra, who said she lost two daughters to drug overdoses, holds a sign outside the Harm Reduction Action Center in Denver on Aug. 31, 2023. (Sara Wilson/Colorado Newsline)

“We must demand that policymakers listen to the demands of the communities most affected by overdoses and that they prioritize and expand the evidence-based public health strategies proven to save lives,” said Jennifer Dillon, an organizer with the Colorado Drug Policy Coalition, said.

Those strategies, she said, are wide-ranging and include overdose prevention centers, on-demand treatment, housing-first programs, basic income programs, and expanded harm reduction funding to make items like naloxone and fentanyl test strips readily available.

She also suggested policies to reduce criminalization and punishment for drug use.

“Legislators are letting their allegiance to comfort and the status quo bury our loved ones. As much as today is a day of reverence and honor, it is also a day of shame — especially for those people who ran on platforms of decarceration, decriminalization and humane drug policy. My challenge to all of us is that we make that unforgivable this legislative session,” Dillon said.

There have been 311 deaths involving drugs — 201 of which involve fentanyl — in Denver County this year, according to medical examiner data.

The Colorado Legislature last session considered a bill that would have let local governments decide whether to allow overdose prevention centers to operate in their city. Those centers, sometimes called safe use sites, are places where people can use drugs under supervision of people who can administer the overdose-reversing drug naloxone if needed. The bill did not pass, but another version could be introduced next year.

“We’re finding our neighbors in alleys and in their tents and in coffee shop bathrooms. That’s where we’re finding them, where they left us. But the series of decisions and actions that led us to losing them happens here,” Rep. Elisabeth Epps, a Democrat who sponsored the overdose prevention center bill, said at the Capitol Thursday. “We use the words ‘preventable deaths.’ That’s all of them. And they are a result of policy choices.”