Gov. Polis signed the “Elect Brittany to Congress Bill” into law on Wednesday that was supposed to fix the last fentanyl bill that made it a misdemeanor to possess deadly amounts of the drug.
But instead, the bill’s main author, state Sen. Brittany Pettersen, decided to run for the 7th Congressional District seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter.
Rather than make possession a felony, she threw millions of taxpayer dollars into the bill and promised an education program to inform people fentanyl is deadly, as if we don’t already know that.
And, the government will have more money to buy more Narcan and testing strips, which they will need because the bill failed to do as promise and make illegal possession of a deadly substance a felony.
The whole point of reopening the previous law that failed to categorize a drug that kills in minuscule amounts as very, very illegal, was to make it very, very illegal.
What we got instead was even worse politics as usual that skirted the real problem altogether with a bill that makes progressives feel good about themselves.
Until the next funeral.
Remember that when Pettersen and her husband, Denver Post columnist Ian Silverii, use the fentanyl bill for campaign commercials and talking points.
State Sen. Brittany Pettersen with Gov. Polis signing her failed fentanyl bill in a photo op for her congressional campaign.
Like this column Silverii wrote for the Post last week praising the bill that was sponsored by his wife, the Democrat congressional candidate.
How is that even ethical, you ask?
It’s not.
The Post should have canned Silverii’s column and distanced him from the Post editorial board the minute Pettersen announced she was running for Congress back in January.
Their eventual endorsement of her will be a joke, except not funny.