Colorado Adds $3.5 Million to Statewide Naloxone Buying Fund

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser added $3.5 million in opioid settlement money to the state's naloxone bulk purchase fund on Thursday, doubling a commitment first made in 2025 and extending free distribution of the overdose reversal medication through June 2028.

The total from the attorney general's office now stands at $6.5 million. The money flows to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which runs the purchasing fund and passes doses at no charge to schools, law enforcement agencies, harm reduction organizations and other groups working with people at risk of overdose.

The announcement is not a new program but a renewal of a subsidy with a fixed end date, and the arithmetic of the past year explains why it needed one.

What the fund actually moved

During the 2025-26 fiscal year, the fund made 364,072 doses available at no cost through 231 eligible agencies, with at least one participating agency in all 64 Colorado counties, according to the attorney general's office.

Eight of those agencies voluntarily reported that naloxone they distributed was used to reverse 5,100 overdoses over the same period. The office notes that organizations are not required to report reversals, which means the true figure is likely higher — and also that it is unverifiable in either direction.

That reporting gap is the fund's most significant blind spot. A state can count the doses it buys and the agencies that accept them. It cannot, from this data, say how many deaths were prevented, because the events that matter most — a friend or a stranger administering a dose in a parking lot or an apartment — are recorded nowhere unless someone chooses to file a report.

The death toll behind the purchase

Colorado recorded 1,175 opioid overdose deaths in 2025, including 980 involving fentanyl, according to state health department figures cited in the announcement.

Against that baseline, the mechanism the state has chosen is a central purchaser rather than a grant program: the health department buys in bulk and passes doses to agencies that would otherwise have to buy them on their own. The release does not report a per-dose price or project how many doses the new $3.5 million will buy.

Weiser framed the spending as an obligation attached to the settlement money itself. "We have a responsibility to put the money we recovered from the companies that fueled the opioid crisis to work protecting Colorado communities," he said. "This additional investment will help ensure that people have access to lifesaving naloxone and a second chance at recovery."

Where the money comes from, and how it is divided

The funding is drawn from nationwide settlements with drug manufacturers and distributors. Colorado is on track to receive more than $912 million over 18 years, with $205.7 million received through December 2025, according to the attorney general's office.

Under the state's settlement framework, 90 percent of the money is allocated to local governments and regional communities for prevention, treatment, recovery, harm reduction and infrastructure. The naloxone commitment comes from the state's remaining 10 percent share, which is why a single state office can direct it without a local allocation process.

That structure matters for anyone tracking settlement spending. The large majority of Colorado's money is not the attorney general's to spend; it moves through local and regional decisions, and the state's dashboard is the published record of where it went.

Why naloxone money is treated differently from treatment money

Naloxone occupies an unusual position in the settlement landscape: it is a purchase that can be justified on the grounds that it prevents an immediate death, without any claim about recovery, abstinence or program completion. That is also its measurement problem. A state can count the doses it distributed — 364,072 last fiscal year — and it can count the reversals that agencies volunteer, but it cannot say from that data whether the supply reached the people closest to an overdose.

For readers, the practical information is concrete: free naloxone is available through the state's Save a Life Colorado directory, and the attorney general's release states it reverses overdoses involving fentanyl as well as other opioids. What the medication does not do is treat opioid use disorder; under the same settlement framework, 90 percent of Colorado's money is directed to prevention, treatment, recovery and harm reduction programs run by local and regional governments.

The renewed commitment runs through June 2028. After that, the fund again depends on a decision by the attorney general's office about whether the state's 10 percent share keeps going to doses, or moves to something else.