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Fentanyl test strips and better data may be a few of the many solutions to the opioid epidemic and the Mountain West's spike in overdose deaths.

In the high-stakes fight against fentanyl-induced drug deaths, one remedy is fairly simple: blue and white strips of paper. Fentanyl test strips work like a pregnancy test. One line shows up if there’s fentanyl in a solution. Two lines if there’s none. But where are they needed most?

Fatal drug overdoses are skyrocketing, driven by synthetic opioids like fentanyl. And that potentially deadly drug has made it to the Mountain West – the last part of the U.S. to face the brunt of the opioid crisis.

Pills that are laced with fentanyl or contain nothing but fentanyl are coming into the Mountain West via the border with Mexico. About a quarter of the fentanyl pills seized by the DEA have had enough fentanyl to kill.

Nationally, the CDC estimates we lost around 92,000 Americans to overdoses in the past year, far more than ever before. The pandemic exacerbated mental health challenges and isolation, so that may be part of the reason: but so is the spread of synthetic opioids like fentanyl.

Colorado hopes to decrease opioid overdose deaths with a new initiative, the Colorado Naloxone Project. The goal is to make Colorado the first state in which every hospital and emergency department is able to identify patients at risk of opioid overdose and then give them naloxone to take home. The medication reverses the effects of an overdose.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is easing restrictions on one of the most effective treatments for opioid addiction.

Drug overdose deaths have increased in Colorado amid the coronavirus pandemic. About 130 people died of overdoses in May across the state, nearly doubling the average from recent years, The Gazette reported. State health department data reported 73 deaths in 2019, 79 in 2018 and 64 in 2017.

The Department of Human Services' Office of Behavioral Health will receive $41.6 million over the next two years from the State Opioid Response grant. The state has been awarded this grant since 2017 to combat opioid use disorders. But this grant cycle expands the focus to include methamphetamine and other stimulant use disorders.

Many businesses have been forced to reduce in-person services because of the coronavirus. This includes hospitals, health care centers and clinics. As a result, use of telemedicine is on the rise. What started out as an emergency fix during the pandemic has become a more permanent solution.