Those who are closest to the Fentanyl crisis in Southern Colorado said they’re seeing users’ tolerance increase and practitioners who are working with drug addicts said Medicaid is limiting how much they can help in their recovery.
Fentanyl could kill you, but there is a new trend among some users in Colorado Springs who have built up a tolerance. They are chasing a new high – taking up to 50 pills of Fentanyl a day.
“This drug has somehow managed to induce tolerance is higher than we’ve ever seen,” Dr. Kevin Snyder said.
Snyder opened Achieve Whole Recovery clinic with his business partner in 2017 to offer testing, support services and outpatient treatment for Medicaid patients.
“We were seeing people at one milligram and two milligrams was like, ‘Whoa, that’s a lot.’ We were now having people come in and report using four to five milligrams of heroin. And we were like, ‘How are you surviving? How are you still breathing,’” Snyder recalled.
84 people died from taking Fentanyl out of the total 146 drug-related deaths in 2023, according to data from the El Paso County Coroner’s Office. That’s up from the 79 people killed by Fentanyl in 2022.