Ground-level ozone may reach levels that are unhealthy for some people, including active adults and children and people with lung disease, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said in an air quality alert. Those folks should avoid outdoor activity between noon and 8 p.m. Thursday.

State public health officials issued an ozone action day alert from 4 p.m. Wednesday until at least 4 p.m. Thursday for western Adams, western Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, Jefferson, Larimer and Weld counties.

“Breezy winds will limit ozone development on Wednesday. However, hot and stagnant weather will allow ozone to reach the Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups category on Thursday,” CDPHE officials said.

Colorado already logged record-breaking heat this week, with Pueblo hitting a toasty 105 degrees on Wednesday afternoon, according to the .

Metro Denver is expected to stay in the high 80s and low 90s through the end of the week before creeping up to 95 on Saturday, which won’t break any temperature records but is between 5 and 10 degrees , NWS data shows.

An ozone action day alert is in effect until 4 p.m. because ozone levels may reach levels that are unhealthy for sensitive groups, according to the .

The alert includes western Adams, western Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Jefferson, Larimer and Weld counties.

Active children and adults and people with lung disease like asthma are more likely to experience respiratory symptoms and should avoid prolonged or heavy exercise outdoors, agency officials said.

State officials issued an for parts of the Front Range, including Boulder, Jefferson, Denver, southern Weld and western Douglas, Arapahoe and Adams counties on Thursday morning.

“An intrusion of ozone from high up in the atmosphere to the surface is expected through at least Thursday afternoon,” in the alert.

Public health officials also sent out an on Thursday afternoon for the Front Range urban corridor from Douglas County to the south and Weld and Larimer counties to the north. The advisory is set to last until at least 4 p.m. Friday.

Action day alerts mean pollutants, including ozone, are either at unhealthy levels or are expected to reach unhealthy levels later that day or the next. An air quality index value of 101-150 is considered unhealthy for sensitive groups, while 151 and above is unhealthy.

The increased ozone levels means active adults and children, along with people with respiratory disease like asthma, are more likely to have respiratory symptoms and breathing discomfort, public health officials said. Ozone levels are expected to reach the highest levels between noon and 10 p.m.

People can reduce emissions that contribute to ground-level ozone by working from home and skipping their commute or taking public transportation, state officials said.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reported the child had no known connection to confirmed cases and hadn’t left the state in recent weeks, meaning they likely got the virus from someone who didn’t seek testing.

If health officials don’t know who has measles, they can’t notify exposed people about the need for precautions, which gives the virus another chance to spread.

People who visited two health care facilities on Wednesday evening could have encountered the virus: Delta Health Urgent Care at 296 Stafford Lane, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., and Delta Health’s emergency department at 1501 Third St., from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. (The virus can hang in the air for two hours, creating situations where one person could inadvertently expose people in two places at the same time.)

Two doses of the vaccine are about 97% effective in preventing measles, and unvaccinated people can reduce their risk of infection if they get the shot within 72 hours of exposure. Getting an antibody drug can lower the odds of complications if an exposed person takes it within six days.

Early measles symptoms include fever, cough, runny nose and red eyes. Most people are contagious about four days before the rash appears, meaning they can spread it without knowing what they have. If someone exposed to the virus develops symptoms within 21 days, they should call ahead before seeking medical care, so the provider can protect other patients.

The child, who is younger than 5, received one dose of the vaccine. Most children receive their first dose at 1 and their .

Colorado had a flurry of measles cases early in the year, including a cluster linked to Broomfield schools. So far, the state has confirmed , raising the possibility of surpassing last year’s total of 36.

In a typical year, the state had two or fewer cases.

Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment officials confirmed the case on Saturday and said a preliminary investigation shows the resident got sick after being exposed to rodents, which is the most common way people are infected.

“CDPHE is working closely with our local partners following standard protocols to investigate this case and identify the source of exposure,” spokesperson Hope Shuler said in a statement, adding that the risk to the general public is low.

Colorado doesn’t see many , but they do occur somewhat regularly – the state usually records a handful of infections from the Sin Nombre hantavirus every year, most commonly in the spring and summer, according to public health records. The virus can also develop into a severe and sometimes deadly respiratory illness known as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.

Deer mice are the most common hantavirus source in Colorado, and people can prevent illness by avoiding exposure to rodents and their urine, feces, saliva and nesting material, state officials said.

There have been 132 cases of Sin Nombre since the disease was discovered in the Four Corners region in 1993, and 47 of those cases were fatal, with the last fatal case recorded in 2024, according to state officials.

Person-to-person transmission is rare and happens with “close and prolonged contact,” like among people who live together or are intimate partners, according to the One specific strain, the Andes virus found in South America, is the only known exception that can rarely spread between people. This is the strain that was , but is different from the Sin Nombre hantavirus found in Colorado.

Eleven people contracted hantavirus on a small Dutch cruise ship, the MV Hondius, earlier this month, which is the first outbreak of its kind. The outbreak killed three people, including a Dutch couple that officials believe first contracted the virus in South America.

The outbreak raised public concerns about another COVID-like disease, but WHO officials have said the

French medical officials on Saturday said scientists had from a MV Hondius case and confirmed that it matches what was previously known about the virus and that there is no evidence it����ap more transmissible or more dangerous.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Suncor issued a community notification at 1:06 p.m. to report “increased smoke and flaring may be visible at Commerce City operations.” The notification said no emergency action was necessary and that toxic fumes were not detected by the refinery’s air monitoring network. People who live and work should not have experienced acute health problems, the company said in a statement.

The power outage happened after an Xcel Energy transmission line tripped, Lisa Anderson, an Xcel spokeswoman, said.

Xcel crews patrolled the line and did not find any faults and then alerted Suncor that employees could safely restart operations, Anderson said. Transmission lines can trip offline for a variety of reasons such as weather or equipment issues and those trips automatically shut off power to help keep people and the grid safe, she said.

No broader customer outages were reported.

Suncor officials reported the malfunction to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Air Pollution Control Division and state regulators sent an inspector to the facility, said Kate Malloy, a CDPHE spokeswoman.

The air division’s meteorologists believe Monday’s wind conditions lifted the pollution away from the ground, Malloy said. But the state will continue monitoring the malfunction and will learn more as Suncor files its mandatory reports about the outage.

officials said the increased flaring would happen while workers restarted the equipment that had been shut down after the power outage.

Monday’s outage and ensuing smoke caused alarm throughout Commerce City.

Multiple people in Commerce City sent pictures and videos to The Denver Post that showed black and yellow plumes flowing from the refinery’s smokestacks. Flames were visible from multiple stacks.

Cultivando, a public health advocacy group in Adams County, criticized the emergency notification system for providing few details about what was happening even as smoke poured into the air.

Steve O’Dorisio, an Adams County commissioner who lives near the refinery, said he was taking pictures and videos of the black smoke and yellow plume when workers, who were not affiliated with Suncor, stopped to caution him about potential dangers associated with the fumes.

O’Dorisio has demanded for years more accountability for Suncor and its repeated air pollution violations. He said Monday’s billowing smoke was just one more example of failures to keep Suncor from exceeding its permitted levels of pollution, and he demanded that Suncor officials meet with Commerce City residents to explain why it continues to happen.

“You can say it’s an error, a mistake, an accident,” he said. “You know what also isn’t good? To say this is routine.”

On April 14, black smoke billowed from the Suncor refinery in Commerce City as the facility shut down one of its plants due to an electrical issue. Gusts of black smoke were visible for miles, and the incident led CDPHE to send an inspector to the site.

The company later filed a malfunction report with the state health department that listed multiple pollutants it released in excess of the amounts allowed in its air pollution permit. Those pollutants included carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide, which also created more sulfur dioxide,

Flares at the refinery are used to burn off excess, combustible chemicals as a safety measure. The company is allowed to release visible smoke up to six minutes per hour, under the terms of its air permit.

This is a question parents face today, as changing cultural attitudes have inspired marijuana legalization in some states, and other sweeping drug reforms. School-based drug education is slowly adapting to these new norms by equipping kids not only with science-based information about various substances and their impact on the adolescent brain, but also the life skills they need to make healthy choices.

Still, parents have a vital role to play when it comes to prevention and intervention, experts say.

“Parents, along with schools, are one of the primary socialization agents for drug use prevention,” said Devin McCauley, post-doctoral scholar at , which studies adolescent behavior and develops drug prevention curricula.

While advocating that kids simply avoid drugs and alcohol may seem instinctual, research shows that this strategy doesn’t typically lead to abstinence. Today, experts like McCauley recommend a more nuanced approach to discussing drugs as a family — one that starts with fostering open lines of communication and demystifying these conversations so they don’t feel taboo.

Building a foundation of trust is essential so that youth will take what their parents say seriously and also feel comfortable confiding in them when issues arise.

“We’re never going to live in a landscape where 0% of the kids try substances, right? When parents take a ‘just say no’ approach and someone maybe tries something at a party or feels pressured, uses a vape because they feel cornered by friends, they’ve already used it — and they’re like, now what do I do? Do I hide it? There’s nothing in place for people who have experimented and don’t know what to do next,” McCauley said.

“Understanding that kids are being targeted and having empathy, work with your kid — like hey, I know this can be a really tough issue, let����ap team up and be partners to make sure you’re safe,” he said.

Here are five practical tips to help parents navigate talking to their kids about drugs.

Start conversations early and return to them often

In today’s culture, experts say it is never too early to start talking to your kid about drugs and, in fact, it should be a topic revisited often.

Instead of working up to a single, all-encompassing conversation, consider discussing drugs in small, incremental ways, McCauley said. That will allow you to circle back without feeling like there’s pressure on the topic.

It is, however, important to make the conversations age-appropriate. For example, parents can start talking with preschoolers about cold or toothache medicines, what they do and how they should only be used when feeling unwell. As children reach middle school, parents can approach conversations with curiosity and open-mindedness in order to understand exactly what is happening in their kids’ social circles.

“I know this is common sense, but just building a strong relationship with the youth in your life — spending one-on-one time, listening without immediate judgement, knowing what children are interested in, what their activities are, who their friends are — that����ap foundational, so that when they experience stress or peer pressure, they’re more likely going to come to you,” said Alison Long, health promotion manager at the .

As they reach their teenage years, it is OK to be specific about the substances you think they will encounter. McCauley suggests generalizing or using the news to ask open-ended questions that take judgement out of the tone. For example, “I’ve seen a lot about nicotine vapes on the news. What do you think about that? What do you notice among your friends and peers?” Those set the stage for a different conversation than asking teens, “You’re not vaping, are you?”

To avoid putting pressure on these discussions, initiate them in places and at times where you naturally connect with your kid, McCauley added. That could be on drives to and from extracurricular activities, while watching television or walking, or anywhere else you usually spend quality time.

Practice active listening

Conversations about drugs should be just that — two-way exchanges. McCauley and Long advise parents to listen more than they talk to build trust and validate their child’s experiences.

“There’s data saying teens want to be able to open up and talk about this with their parents. A lot of them aren’t quite sure how. They fear being judged, they fear consequences. So if we respond in a way that is an invitation and shows that we trust them as well, I think that can acknowledge that need on part of teens and have this be an ongoing, evolving conversation,” McCauley said.

To that end, avoid lecturing and interrogating teens, which will almost assuredly turn them off to whatever message you are trying to get across. Be curious and ask questions. That includes asking for permission to share your personal perspective and understanding of drug risks.

All this works to show adolescents that they are valued, trusted and that, as a parent, you want to work with them. Health organizations across the state even host educational opportunities for teens and trusted adults to attend together, which can further strengthen relationships as well as offer essential knowledge to both parties.

“We try to stress that knowledge is power on both parts, on the adult and the youth,” said Lyndall Young, nurse and instructor at , which curates a variety of drug education programming for youth and adults. Whether it’s learning how to use naloxone, understanding the risks of opioids or getting tips on how to navigate hard conversations, “the more they know, they can go out and not only be safe for themselves, but be safe for their whole family,” Young said.

Don’t freak out if you hear something you don’t like

The whole point of building trust with your kids is to open the floor for honesty. So if your teen confides in you and you don’t like what you hear — such as they or their friends have been experimenting with drugs and alcohol — it is important to remain calm.

“If you hear something that����ap alarming to you, take a beat, take a breath,” McCauley said. It is fair for parents to express their concerns, he added, but do it in a way that avoids shaming. Stick to personal statements such as “I am a little concerned” or “I just want you to be safe.”

Asking questions and getting feedback here is also essential to understand a young person’s motivation and the context in which this happened. Long suggested leading with an affirmation — e.g. “Thank you for sharing that with me.” — and following up with curiosity: Do you want to talk about it? Why did you do that? How did it go? Can we talk about some of the risks?

“If it makes you upset and angry, recognize that. That����ap OK and understandable as a parent, but maybe that����ap not the time for you to give your side. Maybe just focus on listening,” Long said.

Lean on the facts

Removing emotion and judgement from drug discussions can be difficult, but leaning on the facts will assist parents.

Resources like the offer parent brochures that outline need-to-know facts about fentanyl and how to share those with your teen. Other health leaders like the and have guidance for parents to bolster their knowledge about marijuana and frame discussions.

One of the most compelling avenues, experts say, is harping on the fact that adolescent brains aren’t done developing until age 25, so using substances can have long-lasting impacts. Note that it is also illegal to use alcohol, marijuana and nicotine until age 21, and doing so could have legal implications for a teen’s future.

McCauley noted there is a fine line between informing kids about drugs and teaching them how to use. Approach these subjects in ways that empower teens to share the information with their friends and be a leader or in a position to help when issues or questions arise among their peers.

“There’s a difference between saying, ‘When you use, slow down, wait two hours,’ versus ‘adolescents have gotten really sick because they ate three or four (cannabis) gummies in a row. They didn’t know it can take up to an hour (to take effect),’” said McCauley. “It’s worthwhile to have that information and you can try to present it in a way that����ap not an instruction manual.”

Model the behavior you hope to see

Stressing again that parents are among the primary role models for kids as they age, Long emphasized exhibiting the behaviors you hope to see in your children. What you do is going to impact your kids more than what you say, she said. For example, if you are stressed, promote healthy coping mechanisms like taking a walk or calling a friend.

“If you’re going to have wine, maybe don’t say, ‘I’m so stressed, I’m going to have a glass of wine.’ Rather, if you are going to have a glass of wine, have it with dinner and show you can drink responsibly,” Long said.

She and McCauley also advised setting clear expectations for your kids, even brainstorming family values together to get teens to buy in. Additionally, make sure all the adults in the household are on the same page.

“One of the whole points of adolescence is to become your own person, develop your own autonomy and your own independence. If parents can respect that and empower it����ap going to go a long way,” McCauley said.

Rightfully so, since the mural was inspired by a similar drawing she had done for a sticker contest hosted by , a youth-focused drug prevention organization. It was one of the winning designs and earned her the opportunity to adapt the sticker into a piece of public art.

“I think it inspires kids to give out their creativity and use their voices to say what they’re proud of,” Sprouse said at the mural reveal. “Balloons rise up, and if you see someone out there doing drugs, help them, be a support system for them, show them that they’re able to rise up.”

Rise Above’s art projects aim to engage youth in community initiatives that foster personal relationships and give them a sense of belonging, two factors that studies show are linked to lower rates of substance use. The nonprofit promotes to debunk the myth that teen drug use is pervasive and help young people cultivate healthy behaviors,��said executive director Kent MacLennan.

In 2024, Rise Above Colorado kids ages 12 to 17 and found that youth who choose to abstain are the majority, not the minority.��“Our focus has really been (to) change the narrative, show the data from these surveys that are legitimate that show most youth aren’t using,” MacLennan said.

Nonprofits like Rise Above Colorado and Western Colorado Area Health Education Center offer activities and events that aim to engage teens outside of classrooms and help them develop a sense of purpose. From documentary screenings and naloxone trainings to youth-built drug information resources and even mural projects, organizations seek to equip young people with science-based facts and enable them to become experts among their peer groups. Recent state-level public health campaigns, too, have focused on the facts instead of fear, in hopes of illuminating new research on substances like marijuana.

This is the final story in The Denver Post����ap three-part series examining how drug education has evolved alongside the legalization and normalization of substances like cannabis and psychedelics. Previous stories focused on how the general public has begun warming to harm reduction ideals in light of the opioid crisis and how local schools are navigating drug education in the era of drug reform.

“We have always wanted to focus on some of the root causes and what are the things that youth are doing that make life worthwhile,” MacLennan said. “So, celebrating all of that, yet at the same time making sure that youth understand the risks, the consequences. That they understand adolescent brain development and the importance of all the years that you cannot use are formative for the brain and dramatically reduce your risk of addiction later on in life.”

Today, these organizations are also filling in for state agencies that often lack the resources to lead educational campaigns.

After becoming the first state to permit recreational marijuana sales in 2014, Colorado funded several campaigns to inform both residents and tourists about its new laws as well as the health effects of cannabis use.

However, neither the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment nor the Department of Revenue currently has funding to do the same for psychedelics, which were legalized and decriminalized in 2022.

Representatives from both publicly funded agencies declined to be interviewed for this story.

One exception is the Colorado Department of Transportation, which recently to educate folks about the effects and legality of driving under the influence of psilocybin, including those who microdose.

New campaign relies on cannabis research

Some of Colorado’s early government-led cannabis campaigns targeted teens with varying levels of success.

In one notorious flop, the Colorado Department of Law and the Governor’s Office spent $2 million on an initiative called “Don’t Be A Lab Rat.” Launched in 2014, the campaign suggested that Colorado was a testing ground for the consequences of marijuana legalization — and that teens would be the test subjects if they chose to consume. (It’s worth noting that the messaging targeted adolescents under the legal age to purchase and consume cannabis, which is 21 years old.) In addition to TV and movie theater ads, campaign organizers installed human-sized rat cages around Denver, which were promptly mocked and vandalized.

The state health department — which was not involved in “Don’t Be a Lab Rat” — later developed several youth-targeted campaigns, such as Protect What����ap Next in 2015, which encouraged kids to set goals for their lives and then cautioned that marijuana use could get in the way of those; and Forward Together in 2020, aimed at inspiring teens to build more connected relationships. (While not specifically for teenagers, a 2015 campaign called Good To Know showed some effectiveness in educating pregnant women, parents and tourists about Colorado’s marijuana laws.)

The only state-led initiative that still exists today, however, is called . Rolled out in 2018, it is essentially a website that features guidance on how to consume and store cannabis responsibly, as well as information related to adolescent use and use during pregnancy.

In recent years, the state legislature has invested funds to support researching and educating the public about highly potent marijuana.

Lawmakers passed a bill in 2021 requiring the Colorado School of Public Health to perform a systematic review of the scientific research related to possible physical and mental health effects of high-potency cannabis concentrates, such as vape oils and dabs, and create a public health campaign based on the findings. The state allocated $5 million to the school — a partnership between the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus, Colorado State University and the University of Northern Colorado — to support this initiative over several years.

The result, called launched in 2024 with the goal of raising awareness about the risks of consuming high-concentration cannabis through podcasts, documentary shorts and social media content, including influencer partnerships. The campaign specifically highlights the potential health risks associated with consumption during adolescence and pregnancy, which researchers identified as the most critical periods for harm in their review of more than 650 scientific studies. (Researchers broadened their definition of “higher concentration cannabis” beyond concentrates to include flower with more than 10% THC and edibles with more than 5 milligrams of THC.)

While previous campaigns focused on helping people understand laws after legalization and risks of impaired driving, Tea on THC is the first to synthesize existing research about the potential health impacts, Greg Tung, associate professor of health policy at the Colorado School of Public Health, said by email.

“The campaign focuses on what����ap changed versus repeating outdated messaging,” Tung said. “Our work draws attention to the fact that cannabis products of today are very different than those in years past, and we convey the distinction between these products and what they mean for people’s health.”

For example, messaging emphasizes that cannabis flower contains much more THC now than in decades past — often between 17% to 28% compared to around 3% in 1983, — while concentrates contain as much as 95% THC. The combination of higher-concentration marijuana and a high-concentration delivery method means users can access unprecedented levels of THC at unparalleled speed, the website states.

Still, the campaign’s objective is to discourage people from starting to use cannabis unless they have a valid medical reason, so the messaging leans heavily into potential risks, even though researchers found some evidence that concentrates can benefit individuals with preexisting mental health conditions. Acknowledging the risks is important since legalization has propelled the perception that marijuana is effectively harmless, which is not the case, Tung said.

talks about short-term effects like problems with memory and concentration, a risk of psychosis and acute vomiting, as well as the potential for long-term issues like cannabis use disorder, breathing problems and increased risk of mental health conditions like schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety.

The Tea on THC has likely been the most visible state-funded campaign with more than 56 million viewer impressions between social media, paid media, billboards, and other forms of advertising. The website now exceeds 40,000 monthly visits, the school said, and has reached 62 of Colorado’s 64 counties.

Power to the young people

Instead of relying on top-down drug prevention initiatives, some nonprofits and local health agencies are entrusting young people to lead the way.

The city of Broomfield’s , for example, takes part in an advisory coalition that helps shape health initiatives, such as drug prevention and mental health programming. The city pays middle and high schoolers for their time and expertise, and puts them at the helm of a podcast called which touches on a range of topics, including drugs.

Rise Above Colorado recruits students from across the state to be part of its Teen Action Council, which does peer drug education in a variety of ways. The council receives training on positive social norms so members can act as ambassadors within their communities and also leads digital projects that seek to disseminate critical drug information to others their age.

In 2023, for example, the council collaborated with Attorney General Phil Weiser’s office to develop a website called intended to spread awareness about opioids and reduce the risk of misuse. It details facts that teens can share with their friends, like the majority of fake pills out there are laced with fentanyl and that ingesting just 2 milligrams can be fatal. It also offers guidance on how to use naloxone and where to find resources such as free counseling. Connect Effect was produced using $750,000 from the state’s opioid settlement funds.

Additionally, in 2017, the Teen Action Council created that provides robust information about various substances, including psilocybin, fentanyl, meth, marijuana and more. Pages include a brief history of the drug, its common names, descriptions of the high, its long and short-term effects on the brain and body, and the legal consequences of possession. Each one includes links to the information sources, so that teens who find the page can use it as a resource if they are interested in learning more.

MacLennan isn’t concerned that the website contains information that could be considered positive or focused on harm reduction.

“Hopefully, youth can understand: what is the high like, why does that potentially make it addictive, and then what are the repercussions? So that ultimately they make informed decisions,” MacLennan said. “We would rather that than, ‘Oh well, I just have to say no’ — it����ap not that black and white. We need to trust them that we’re developing skills enough so they can make good choices.”

Beyond the content, the most important part about the website is that it’s written for youth, by youth. Olli Hocker, who served on Rise Above’s 2024-25 Teen Action Council, considers it the organization’s most impactful initiative because of the service it provides.

“I know that I was looking things like that up when I was actively using,” Hocker said in a 2025 interview, proudly three years sober from using nitrous oxide. “I think it����ap really important to have accurate and nonjudgmental information and it����ap something that is hard to find other places.”

Lyndall Young, nurse and instructor at , echoed that peer-led initiatives are often the most successful she sees in the field.

Her organization acts as a resource hub, working to bring drug prevention and intervention to 15 communities across the Western Slope through a variety of initiatives both inside and outside of schools. Programming ranges from stocking naloxone vending kiosks and training educators to use the opioid reversal medication to facilitating classroom lectures about opioids and curating youth events, like documentary screenings and expert panels about substance use and addiction.

In Delta County, Young works with high schoolers to develop drug lessons that they then present to younger grades. The impact goes both ways, she said. Youth leaders become advocates and their message resonates profoundly with peer audiences.

“We’ve really found (younger kids) love the science behind it and they love it when it comes from a peer. So we really feel that has made a huge impact in our outreach to have those student stars,” Young said.

What exactly constitutes drug education has expanded over the last several years, Young said. While many think of classroom lectures, the work has broadened to become multifaceted and include wraparound services, such as housing, food and counseling support, that seek to address issues that often predate substance use and abuse. Young is heartened by this shift, as it personalizes services and education.

“One thing is not going to work for all the students. You have to hit it (from) different directions,” she said.

Risks of psychedelic use aren’t widely known; Colorado campaign hopes to change that

Education needed for young adults, too

Having access to science-based drug education isn’t just important for teenagers. Young adults also need to understand the perceived benefits and risks of any given substance so they can make informed choices once they turn 21, said public health expert Kristin Nash.

Nash is co-founder of the nonprofit , which is dedicated to addressing the need for accurate, nuanced and science-based information in the burgeoning psychedelics space. Last year, the organization used Colorado to test a new digital campaign called , aimed at educating Gen Z about psychoactive substances and concepts like “set and setting” that can impact a trip.

As psilocybin mushrooms have become more normalized, use has risen. In 2023, about 1.7 million Americans ages 18 to 29 reported using the drug in the past year, marking a 44% increase from 2019, according to .

Before You Trip’s goal was to encourage young adults to “pause, learn and reflect” with a mix of social media ads, Instagram influencer content and a website with drug information and harm-reduction resources. While the campaign highlighted psychedelics’ potential risks and documented harms, its tone was intentionally nonjudgmental and content did not advocate for abstinence.

“We know that young people are already making the decision to use and engage with these substances. We also know that ‘Just Say No’ approaches turn young people off to the message, and to be fair, we also know a lot of people do get benefit from these,” Nash said. “We need to arm them with the best information we have around risk, contradictions and harm reduction strategies.”

Before You Trip’s pilot campaign ran for roughly six weeks and reached 860,518 unique individuals aged 18 to 30 in the Denver, Boulder and Aspen metro areas, Nash said. Instagram content clocked 5.1 million impressions among that demographic and the Before You Trip website received about 66,000 visits. Those who saw the campaign said it was informative, engaging and helpful.

For Nash, the feedback was reassuring. For years, she has advocated that state governments adopt comprehensive education plans as they seek to legalize and decriminalize psychedelics. But so far, that hasn’t happened. To fill the gaps, the coalition plans to expand Before You Trip into a sustained public health education program and develop toolkits that cities, states and college campuses can use to support safer decision making among young adults.

Nash’s mission is a personal one. In 2020, her son Will died while under the influence of psilocybin at 21 years old. The honors his memory by supporting harm reduction efforts on college campuses, raising awareness about psychedelic safety and advocating for reality-based substance use education across the country.

“We can wish our kids wouldn’t use these all we want… but to me, education is the front line safety net,” Nash said. “When we downplay the risk and we fail to have those important discussions, we put people at risk and we're failing at informed consent.”

This series was reported with support of the .

Billed as , 5280 Recovery serves about 100 teenagers who deal with substance abuse and addiction. The school uses strategies such as coaching and group meetings to help kids get sober — and stay sober — one day at a time, said Keith Hayes, who served as the school’s director of recovery from 2020 to 2026. Many of the staff are also recovering addicts with their own past troubles and life lessons to share.

On one “Winning Wednesday” last May, Hayes stood in front of bleachers full of students and handed out chips to those marking monthly milestones of continuous sobriety. It was the last Wednesday of the 2024-25 academic year and one well worth celebrating. That year, the student body boasted an average of 440 days sober from drugs and alcohol, the highest average since the high school’s opening in 2018.

“There is no chaser with anything that we do here at 5280. It is raw, it is uncut and it is real,” Hayes said in an interview. “The ability to be vulnerable with each other without judgment, without shame, is a beautiful thing. And I think the only way that real recovery works is that we can have difficult conversations about difficult things.”

After the presentation, recovery coach Brittany Kitchens then led a group discussion to talk about the challenges of staying sober during the summer without the structure and accountability of school weeks. She asked the teenagers in the room how they would fill their free time and who they would surround themselves with in the absence of their classmates.

Educators say it����ap critical to build trusting relationships between students and adults, and to entrust student leaders to help shape the culture in their communities. For some, this also means working closely with students who get into trouble as well, and instituting deeper forms of development than simple discipline or punishment.

But approaches remain a patchwork across Colorado since the state’s “local control” form of governance leaves it up to individual school districts to determine curriculum content. When it comes to drugs, state law only requires that some type of prevention education must be taught, though it lacks specifics about what that should look like.

That means the breadth and depth of information covered varies “dramatically” between districts, said James Hurley, comprehensive health and physical education content specialist at the Colorado Department of Education.

This is the second story in The Denver Post����ap three-part series examining how drug education has evolved alongside changing cultural attitudes towards substances like cannabis and psychedelics, both of which are now legal in Colorado.

The Post spoke with five districts, both urban and rural, about their approaches; we also attended classes, virtually and in-person, at two. Prevention and intervention efforts within these districts are fairly new. Denver Public Schools, the state’s largest district, developed its programming in 2015 in response to marijuana legalization. Comparatively, the small Gunnison Watershed School District in southwestern Colorado hired its first student wellness coordinator in 2024 to oversee health programming and partnerships.

Normalizing sobriety

Educators said nicotine, cannabis and alcohol are the most common intoxicants they see and hear about among school-age kids, though awareness about opioids and psychedelics is growing.

In 2023, 20.5% of high school students reported they currently drink alcohol, according to the latest data available from the , issued every two years by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The survey found 12.8% of high schoolers use marijuana, 8.7% vape nicotine and 3.1% smoke cigarettes.

Additionally, 3.5% of respondents said they take prescription pain medicine not prescribed to them or differently than prescribed. (The 2025 Healthy Kids Colorado survey results are expected to be published in June.)

Some of those statistics mark a notable decrease from the prior survey issued in 2021, when 23.6% of high school-aged kids reported drinking alcohol, and 16.1% reported vaping. The percentage of students who reported abusing pain medication also dropped, from 5.9% in 2021. Marijuana and cigarette use remained flat.

Despite concerns that underage marijuana use would skyrocket after legalization in 2014, rates largely remained stable before decreasing significantly in recent years. In 2019, the use rate among high schoolers was 20.6%,compared to 21.2% in 2015, according to the survey.

The 2023 survey added a new question asking high school-aged kids if they had ever used psychedelics, and 3.8% reported that they had.

The data underscores that most local teenagers are not using drugs and alcohol — even though they often overestimate the number of their peers who are. For example, 42.8% said they thought a majority of their peers binge drank — defined as four or more alcoholic drinks in one night — compared to just 12.1% who reported having done so in the previous 30 days, according to the 2023 survey.

“We need to normalize sobriety,” Hayes said. “We need to normalize that it����ap OK to be comfortable in my own skin, I don’t need a social lubricant.”

A focus on trust and transparency

When talking to students about drugs, Colorado educators said transparency and trust are key to making an impact, especially for a generation with the world’s information at its fingertips.

During his tenure at 5280 Recovery High School, Hayes sought to create a judgment-free zone so kids felt comfortable being honest with their recovery coaches.

“Let’s stop telling people drugs and alcohol are bad because that’s not true. Because if they were so bad, would anybody be out here doing them?” Hayes said. “So we tell kids, ‘We love drugs, we know they’re phenomenal. We love alcohol. But if I truly work in an active program of recovery, that can be even more phenomenal.’ And that����ap the messaging. Kids dig that.”

In more traditional high school settings, the tone is typically more tempered. But educators still aim to create an environment where trust and honesty are reciprocal with their students. Having trusted adults to confide in is one critical factor that ultimately supports youth emotional and physical well-being, experts said, and well-being is inextricably linked to substance use and abuse.

At Ridgway Secondary School, where enrollment in grades six through 12 totals just 150 pupils, Shawnn Row has a unique opportunity to build a rapport with students and their families. In addition to being a health teacher, Row serves as the athletic director, an English teacher and outdoor education coordinator, so he sees the same kids in numerous capacities for many years.

As the ninth graders filed into health class on a chilly February morning last year, it was clear they were immediately engaged. For one, Row was speaking their language. The first slide on the day’s presentation about marijuana featured a meme with a picture of a young boy smiling, his head flanked by text. “4/20? Puff puff pass? I’d rather pass today’s math quiz, thanks.”

As the kids repeated the punchline and giggled, Row stood at the front of the room with a welcoming smile. “Today we’re gonna talk about weed,” he said.

Health is a year-round class here, though the subject matter varies with the semester. Students receive sex education in the fall and drug education in the spring. Row began creating all the lessons himself several years ago after finding that out-of-the-box curricula didn’t resonate. His presentations combine scientific information about the adolescent brain, the known benefits and risks of various substances, and personal anecdotes from his own life.

Row appreciates that his school leaders believe drug education should be a continuous conversation, instead of something that����ap relegated to a specific timeframe or initiative. That also gives him the flexibility to address what specifically interests students.

“Usually at the beginning of eighth grade (and) ninth grade health, I say, ‘Hey, write down topics you’re curious about or you’ve seen somewhere or you’ve heard about,’ and I’ll try to integrate them into the lessons I have planned already,” Row said.

Row’s lecture about cannabis didn’t sugarcoat the fact that it is widely available in Ridgway, a town of about 1,200 residents and three recreational dispensaries near downtown. The students were well aware of that, of course. You can smell it “walking around on any given Tuesday,” one said during class.

Row broke down the differences between cannabidiol and tetrahydrocannabinol, explaining the psychoactive effects and how those distinguish the CBD products in grocery stores from the THC products in pot shops. He also shared a study tracking youth use and later life outcomes, and a story about how Kansas police once pulled him over and searched his car because of his Colorado license plate.

After class, then-freshman Izzy Katz said she learned a lot from the presentation, but still wasn’t sure if she considered marijuana good or bad. Some drugs, like fentanyl and heroin, have very clear harms, she said. Cannabis didn’t seem similarly dangerous, but it also didn’t seem benign like Vitamin C.

“I feel like marijuana is kind of put in that grey area where people don’t know how to categorize it,” Katz said. Her sentiment exemplifies the challenge of discussing once-demonized drugs that are now being reframed in light of legalization.

“I really hammer away on (the fact that) the teenage brain is not fully developed, and no matter what substance it is you put in your body, it����ap going to have a bigger effect on you than it will on a 25-, 30- or 35-year-old,” Row said in an interview. “That is kind of the challenge with the legalization of weed and now psychedelics is, if adults don’t see it as harmful, the kids are less likely going to, as well.”��

Row navigated this again when he tackled psychedelics during an April health class. While substances like psilocybin and LSD aren’t as popular as vaping, cannabis or alcohol, Row believes kids have been exposed to them enough through movies, social media and the news to warrant a discussion. And he’s probably right.

The freshmen were noticeably excited the morning they arrived and saw a presentation titled “psychedelics/hallucinogens.” After discussing the role of the brain’s thalamus and how psychedelics suppress its ability to filter all the sensory experiences of the world, one student suggested that this may be a good thing in moderation. After all, The Beatles “took LSD all the time and they had fire music during that timeframe,” she said. Another said she has read that microdosing ‘shrooms can help with anxiety.

Yes, psychedelics could boost creativity in some cases, and yes, research has shown they can be beneficial in therapy, Row responded. But the effects are not all just fractals and rainbows.

“If our thalamus wasn’t working, we would be in sensory overload all the time, and when people do acid, do mushrooms, usually once they wear off, they are completely depleted,” Row told the class. It can take a day or more to recover from a single 8- to 12-hour trip, he added.

Youth leaders cultivate culture

Three hundred miles away, substance prevention specialist Leah Raffa is tasked with disseminating drug education to the 89,000-plus Denver Public Schools students. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution here. Instead, Raffa and her colleagues in the Exceptional Student Services sector, which addresses mental health and student well-being, curate a menu of prevention resources and give each school autonomy over the best ways to serve their unique student populations.

Offerings include curricula that focus specifically on vaping, cannabis, prescription drugs and opioids, as well as programming designed to help students cope with stress and create meaningful connections with peers and adults at their schools. Where intervention is needed, DPS will deploy school social workers and psychologists to work directly with individual kids.

Perhaps one of the more interesting ways the district seeks to address whole child well-being is through a program called . The program, which resurfaces throughout elementary, middle and high school, teaches kids to identify and draw upon their personal strengths as a means for creating healthy habits and lifestyles.

At the high school level, Sources of Strength is an extracurricular activity intended to cultivate a group of peer leaders who effectively act as positive influences in their schools. At Denver South High School, the group includes about 10 students, freshmen through seniors, who work with onsite social workers on initiatives that amplify inspiring stories and build community within the student body.

While this program doesn’t directly educate kids about drugs, it works as a prevention mechanism by empowering students to shape their school’s culture and build a peer support network for those who might be struggling, Raffa said.

Rose Negler, who graduated from Denver South last spring, spent several years participating in Sources of Strength and said the most impactful projects were often some of the smallest. For one initiative, students wrote down the name of a positive friend on a slip of paper and then collectively linked them into paper chains that decorated the hallways. The skills she learned also benefited her theater class once when a student went missing. Negler was able to talk to other students who were stressed and help diffuse the situation.

“A lot of my Sources skills came in handy there because I knew what to do in that kind of crisis and I was able to handle it,” she said.

At 5280 Recovery High School, the students even sponsor one another. “We can talk to the kids ‘til we’re blue in the face about what we did to get sober, but it hits different when it’s a 16-year-old who has your same experiences and got their way out of that hole,” Hayes said.

Whole child solutions

In some districts, the most significant evolution has come in how educators react and intervene when students are caught using. In the Montrose County School District on Colorado’s Western Slope, strategies revolve around identifying environmental or circumstantial factors, such as food insecurity, that may be causing students’ drug use and connecting them with community organizations to help remedy those, said Megan Farley, the district����ap manager of student health and safety.

“What we find is (a student) might be using nicotine or something, but that����ap the tip of what����ap actually happening,” Farley said. “We go in with a whole person, whole family approach. Like if it����ap food that you need from the food bank, we hook you up with deliveries from the food bank.”

The district began shifting its approach in 2018, in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, mass shooting that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and injured 17 others. A decade ago, Montrose had no school social workers in a district serving roughly 6,000 students. Today, Farley manages a team of up to 20 nurses, therapists, social workers, behavior coaches and school resource officers to support students’ needs.

The district also maintains partnerships with local organizations, like Hilltop Community Resources, so that young people can be connected to specific groups or specialists they may need for support. All someone within the district has to do is express concern about an individual kid and Farley’s team will jump into action.

This ethos applies if a student gets in trouble for something other than drugs, too, said district spokesperson Matt Jenkins.��“A child who is in crisis is not going to go away. We’re not going to expel our way out of that problem. We have to find an intervention and find the solutions in concert with that family to turn the corner.”

Most of the educators who spoke to The Post said they were reevaluating discipline methods in hopes of finding long-lasting solutions. Instead of pushing kids away with punishments like suspension, these educators want to bring the students closer.

Here, again, is where trust comes into play, said Hayes. Given that students at 5280 Recovery High School are in recovery, relapse is a real possibility. When that happens — as it sometimes does — the staff works to comfort and support the individual, connect them with groups and assure them they are not a moral failure.

“A lot of us come into recovery with so much guilt and shame for the things that we’ve done. These kids need love — lots of love and lots of grace and lots of understanding,” Hayes said. “Being able to be there for them and supporting them and encouraging them to keep going is very important.”

This series was reported with support of the .

The bills were withdrawn ahead of committee votes Tuesday. One of them, , would have expanded the market for hemp-based beverages infused with THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.

If passed, the bill would have increased the amount of THC allowed in hemp drinks to make them more attractive for sale in venues and liquor and grocery stores. The drinks could not be derived from marijuana or synthetic or semisynthetic cannabinoids.

Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat sponsoring the measure, said backers sought to “reestablish Colorado as a leader in this industry” with the bill, and she listed off other states with more permissive rules around these types of beverages.

But a lack of “political will” led her to kill it ahead of its first vote.

Currently, hemp-derived THC beverages can be sold in bars and liquor stores, but only if they contain 1.75 milligrams of THC or less per serving. The bill would have upped the limit to 10 milligrams per 12-ounce serving.

The second measure that died, , would have referred to voters a proposal to move testing of marijuana products to and rework the sales tax for marijuana to base it on potency instead of volume.

Sponsor Sen. Marc Snyder, a Manitou Springs Democrat, said the measure was intended “to address the lack of vigorous testing” for marijuana products. Sen. Kyle Mullica, a Thornton Democratic co-sponsor, said he hoped to use taxation to help keep marijuana out of the hands of children.

However, Snyder said he needed more time to properly seek feedback on the proposal. Snyder joined the bill late, after the original sponsor, Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, resigned from the legislature in February.