Gazette - Look up fentanyl, and you’ll learn it’s a narcotic drug — a synthetic opioid. It’s in the same broad category as historically abused and frequently deadly drugs like heroin. You might also learn the number of fentanyl-related overdose deaths in Colorado skyrocketed more than 50% from 2019 to 2020 and continues to surge.

As The Gazette recently reported, preliminary figures show fentanyl has been involved in more overdose deaths in 2021 than in any previous year — outpacing the combined totals from 2015 to 2019.

But to fully grasp the devastating and unprecedented impact fentanyl is having on Colorado and especially its young people, it helps to talk to an expert. The Gazette editorial board spent an hour last week with Dr. Vikhyat Bebarta, an emergency physician, medical toxicologist, award-winning military doc and professor of pharmacology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora.

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