Colorado Sees 83 Percent Increase in Newborns Addicted to Opiates

If you ask anyone if they know one thing about the state of Colorado, they’ll most likely tell you:

“They’re the first state to totally legalize weed!”—with a big smile on their face

Or

“Colorado has the dankest weed!”

It’s true, Colorado was the first state to completely legalize cannabis. Along with the state being able to make tons of tax revenue off the sales of recreational marijuana, the legalization of weed was supposed to bring a drop in opiate addiction. As mostly everyone in the country knows, we have a huge opiate problem and we keep throwing different solutions out there to handle it. Some solutions sound good while others are a bit stranger. Years after weed stores set up shop all over the state of Colorado, there’s still a huge problem with prescription opiates and heroin. Lately, there’s been such a huge surge of babies born addicted to opiates in Colorado that it’s absolutely disturbing.

Between 2010 and 2015, there’s been an 83% increase in newborns being brought into this world addicted to opiates, which equals about 3.6 babies in 1,000. Parkview Medical Center, a hospital who sees mostly impoverished and indigent patients, saw an increase to over 20 babies in 1,000 being born addicted to painkillers and heroin.

Many women don’t tell their doctors about their addictions for fear of criminal charges and prosecution. These women will go through their whole pregnancy using opiates, only to have an opiate-addicted baby. See, addiction is stronger than the desire to have a healthy baby, unfortunately. Many women have a “mama bear” instinct that drives them to protect their child, born or unborn, at all costs. But when a woman is addicted to drugs, those instincts go out the window and being pregnant becomes a nuisance, because in the back of their minds, while they’re 8 months pregnant and shooting up in a dirty, moldy, public restroom at a rest stop off the highway, they know what they’re doing is wrong, but their addiction is too strong to make them care for too long. As the drugs take hold, they forget their problems and the harm they’re doing to their child.

Because so many women don’t tell their doctors about their drug use, the recent surge in opiate-addicted newborns has caused Colorado to form the Substance Exposed Newborns Steering Committee, which helped to pass a state law that protects expecting mothers from criminal prosecution for telling their doctor about their drug abuse. The committee is working hard to get prenatal clinics and hospitals to become more consistent in their screening throughout the state. That way, more babies who will likely experience excruciating drug withdrawals can get the treatment they need. Often, these babies are treated with methadone and other opiates to wean them down off the drugs their mothers were taking.

The glaring truth here is that drugs don’t solve problems with drugs. Most people were really excited by the legalization of marijuana in Colorado, falsely believing it would help the opioid problem because the idea was that people could transition off painkillers and replace them with weed. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. The only way to handle the problem with opiates is with good, quality drug rehab. Once that becomes the main way we deal with the opiate problem, then will we see a drop in the numbers of people affected.

Sources Used:

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/11/29/colorado-newborn-opioid-withdrawal/