Colorado’s quiet killer: Alcohol ends more lives than overdoses, but there’s been no intervention

The Denver Post by Meg Wingerter, January 4, 2024: Four-part series examines why state isn’t sounding the alarm after drinking deaths spiked during pandemic.

Colorado consistently has one of the worst rates of drinking-related death in the country, but alcohol hasn’t gotten nearly the attention devoted to other drugs. In this four-part series, The Denver Post investigated why so many Coloradans are dying from drinking, and what the state could do in an effort to reduce the number of people lost.

By the most conservative measures, alcohol kills nearly as many Coloradans as drug overdoses. When counting deaths from chronic conditions caused and worsened by alcohol, drinking’s toll far exceeds that of illicit drugs.

Deaths from drinking shot up since 2018, but during that time, Colorado didn’t take steps designed to change that trajectory, like raising alcohol taxes. The only major changes in liquor laws during that time expanded where residents could buy alcohol.

The months-long investigation included interviews with dozens of experts, families that lost loved ones, people in recovery from alcohol addiction and groups trying to change the state’s heavy-drinking culture.

Read more from The Denver Post here.