The data are so staggering, the stories so shocking, that Coloradans can’t ignore how Mexican drugs are flooding their state.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced in November more than 100,000 Americans died of overdoses from April 2020 through April 2021. That figure was a ghastly 29% jump from 78,000 the year prior. Colorado’s 35% increase was worse, up from 1,230 deaths to 1,655.

Studies cited by Rehabaid show opioids, mostly fentanyl, account for more than 70% of overdoses.

The deadly epidemic relates directly to President Joe Biden’s sham of an effort to control the southern border and the silence of Colorado’s leadership.

The Gazette reported last week an 8-month drug sting by the Denver Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration that netted 110,000 fentanyl-laced pills smuggled in from Mexico.

Maybe Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Attorney General Phil Weiser will finally see how the porous border undermines all efforts they make to save lives with money from the opioid settlement.

In several conversations with the editorial board, Polis and Weiser have claimed a lack of border knowledge, while exuding a palpable lack of concern, when we have encouraged them to demand better federal border enforcement.

Likewise, we have neither heard nor witnessed any serious concern by Colorado Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper who – as Colorado’s highest-ranking officials in Washington – have direct responsibility for border policy.

DEA Special Agent David Olesky said the volume of pills illustrates how prevalent the narcotic is in-state, with the Denver DEA obtaining four times more fentanyl this year than last.

Arapahoe County District Attorney John Kellner said the sting potentially avoided more than 40,000 deaths, deriving that number from the estimate that 40% of fentanyl-laced pills are deadly. Kellner also estimates the state will have 700 fentanyl-related deaths this year, mostly because of foreign fentanyl snuck across the border.

The victory for law enforcement was substantial, as documented in a Colorado Politics column by Kelly Sloan published just days before the DEA’S announcement.

It cited how federal and state agencies have struggled in recent years to arrest these “dealers of murder.” Thank God and in-state law enforcement, but most these drugs should have never crossed the border.

Agent Olesky didn’t mince words describing the drug operation involving at least a dozen Front Range metro agencies: Each of those 110,000 pills was manufactured in Mexico and then distributed throughout Jefferson, Denver, Arapahoe and Douglas counties out of residences in Commerce City and Denver.

“People think this is happening somewhere else,” Olesky said.

It happens all around us, in every Colorado city, town, and farm village. Many of the drug-addicted victims of this assault on our state are easily visible in our busiest places. Coloradans aloof to the drug-ravaged dystopia of downtown Denver were shocked at footage by CBS 4 and FOX 31 this week. CBS investigator Brian Maass tailed private station patrolman Matt Fleming to get an inside look at the crisis at Union Station.

As TV footage brought viewers beyond the transit hub’s bright holiday lights, cozy shops and cuddly brunch spots, the underground bus terminal looked like “The Upside Down” from the hit Netflix series “Stranger Things.” The station’s subterranean stairs were a real-life portal shepherding ordinary people to a real and dangerous parallel universe adjacent to their saner and safer environments.

Down there, in the Union Station Upside Down, security guards knock on windows to make sure a passed-out man is breathing.

Another man motions the cameraman, seemingly asking if he has drugs. Two more men threaten the cameraman with stabbing or assault if he doesn’t stop recording.

Patrolman Fleming says people should “stay away from the restroom” if they want to be safe. “Go exactly where you’re going and don’t make eye contact with people,” he warns, and “definitely take the stairs instead of the elevator.” He tells of reviving an overdose victim one hour before the cameras arrived.

Fleming explicitly warns there are “significant risks to the public” at the RTD transit hub. He sees dozens of people use and sell drugs each night on the station’s terminals and plazas.

The footage and reports support a written statement last week by the union representing RTD workers. It calls the station a “lawless hellhole.” Union Station — not long ago a family friendly feature of downtown — has seen a quadrupling of violent crime and vice offenses in 2020 and 2021.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock on Friday finally acknowledged Union Station passengers and residents of the surrounding area have contacted him with concerns in recent weeks. Following the footage, Hancock conceded how this major transportation and retail hub has become ground zero for our state’s drug epidemic and crimes that stem from it.

Though drugs smuggled across the border often find their way to Union Station, be assured they don’t stay there. Dealers and users distribute them statewide, where they kill men, women, and children looking to escape the stress, fear, and anxiety of the COVID epidemic.

It took boots-on-the-ground filming, shared with the masses, for Hancock to address this problem.

Maybe this will likewise be a wakeup call for Polis, Weiser, Bennet and Hickenlooper. Deadly foreign drugs are flooding our state after they cross the border.

Despite the inaction and disinterest of Colorado’s highest elected officials, the border crisis is theirs. It is killing their constituents, and they can no longer ignore it out of allegiance to President Biden and their party’s destructive, farleft base.