President Donald Trump criticized...

Editor's note: ...Colorado Governor Jared Polis, accusing him of incompetence on crime, fentanyl trafficking, and election issues. Trump cited a reported seizure of 1.7 million fentanyl pills, alleged Venezuelan gang activity, and condemned the imprisonment of former county clerk Tina Peters (a nine year prison sentence is political revenge) repeating claims of 2020 election fraud that courts have rejected. Polis, a Jewish Democrat who has served as governor since 2019, disputes Trump's characterizations of crime and elections in Colorado. Colorado functions as a fentanyl distribution hub because its central location and major interstate corridors, especially I-25 and I-70, connect Southwest trafficking routes to Midwestern and Mountain West markets, making it an efficient transit and redistribution point for drug networks. Fentanyl moving through Colorado is primarily trafficked by Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), most notably the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), that supply the drug into the U.S. and rely on regional distribution cells, local gangs, and independent dealers to transport, warehouse, and sell it along major interstate corridors like I-25 and I-70.

Stopping fentanyl requires abandoning half-measures and treating it as an organized, transnational supply-chain threat rather than a public-health nuisance: governments must impose sustained, intelligence-driven interdiction on cartel logistics and finances, aggressively disrupt trafficking corridors and money flows, impose certain and severe penalties for large-scale distribution and pill-press operations, and align federal, state, and local enforcement so traffickers cannot exploit policy gaps, while simultaneously separating addicted users into mandatory treatment and supervision to collapse retail demand; because fentanyl only recedes when movement becomes risky, profits become unreliable, capital is seized faster than it can be replaced, and policy signals are unambiguous that trafficking will be crushed rather than managed. 

The economic cost of fentanyl in Colorado, including lost productivity and healthcare, has been estimated at roughly $13 billion in 2024, illustrating the broader financial impact of the continuing fentanyl carnage going on in Colorado. Colorado's fentanyl crisis has intensified sharply, with about 222 deaths in 2019, rising to around 540 in 2020, 912 in 2021, and roughly 920 in 2022. Deaths climbed further to about 1,097 in 2023, and preliminary 2024 data indicate approximately 1,631 fentanyl-related overdose deaths, underscoring a rapid and sustained escalation driven by the spread of highly potent illicit fentanyl.