"It's an everyday occurrence," notes Lorentz. "I don't know what makes them do this — why they think the train is the best place to do this. But it's just completely out of control."
There were 10,991 entries for narcotics activity on RTD lines and property in 2022 in a database of dispatches and calls for service kept by RTD. That's up from 5,567 in 2021, 1,327 in 2020 and 1,088 in 2019.
"There's almost zero security presence," says Lorentz. "It started with the pandemic. That's when it started, when restrictions were going into place and people were working from home. The occupancy on the trains dropped dramatically, but also, so did the security presence."
Drug use on trains, whether it be people smoking methamphetamine or fentanyl, has not only caused worse riding conditions for passengers, but the train operators are suffering, too.
"When it comes to train operating, the weird part is, they say we're closed in the door, so we're safe. But we're not. I can smell a beer as soon as it's cracked open," says Danny Casabianca, a train operator with RTD for over five years.
According to Casabianca, RTD trains suck the air to the ends, so the second somebody starts smoking meth or fentanyl, it goes right into his cab.
"The first thing that I feel with these fumes is a massive headache and nauseousness," he says.
The issue of drug use on trains and buses — although the problem is particularly significant on trains — got worse after a law enforcement crackdown on Union Station began in December 2021.
"It just kind of went onto the buses and trains. The mall street shuttle is kind of, because it’s free, it is a shelter from the elements, and it’s a place to partake of your chosen drug," says Lance Longenbohn, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1001.
And as the problem of drug use has shifted onto trains and buses, RTD operators have been struggling with the health effects of inhaling drug fumes over the last few years.
"It is an absolute nightmare for my members here at RTD," Longenbohn says. "Many of them have just accepted that they will go home every day with headaches from breathing in the fentanyl fumes from people smoking on their bus or on their trains."
Longenbohn and others with the union have spent the past year negotiating with RTD over contract language to take care of operators who are exposed to drug fumes while on the job. Finally, in early January of this year, the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that helps out RTD operators "who were or may have been exposed to illicit drugs," according to Stuart Summers, the chief communications and engagement officer at RTD.
The MOU "allows the employee to be placed on paid administrative leave immediately following the incident for the remainder of their scheduled work for that day and, if needed, the following day if that day is also their regular day to work," Summers says, adding, "Employees who are relieved from duty for exposure to illicit drug fumes will not suffer any attendance penalties for related absences."
That new MOU comes as a relief for people like Casabianca, who has felt like there was an undertone from RTD management that operators should continue working even after drug exposure. Casabianca also has figured out a definitive way to avoid potential drug exposure: He refuses to work any lines that come out of Union Station.
And when it comes to potentially blocking off the ventilation system of the operator sections of trains, Summers says, "similar to other transit agencies across the country, RTD is experiencing an increase in reports of illicit drug use on buses and trains and in the agency’s facilities. RTD is working with public health experts to address the situation appropriately and effectively, which includes exploring all options that will better support the well-being of employees and customers."
There were 10,991 entries for narcotics activity on RTD lines and property in 2022 in a database of dispatches and calls for service kept by the transit service.
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For Lisa Raville, executive director of the Harm Reduction Action Center in Denver, one of the best ways to decrease instances of drug use on RTD lines would be to establish an overdose prevention site —alternately referred to as supervised injection sites or supervised use sites — within Denver.
"One of the many, many benefits of [overdose prevention sites] is that they reduce public drug use. Having the RTD board's support would be key for decision-makers. Almost no one in town is more intimate with public drug use and overdose than RTD staff, board and law enforcement," says Raville.
In 2018, Denver City Council passed a bill to allow for overdose prevention sites, which allow trained supervisors to reverse overdoses, in Denver. These sites also help people get access to addiction treatment services. Mayor Michael Hancock signed the measure into law. However, the next year during election season, Hancock got cold feet on the matter, and attempts to pass an overdose prevention site bill at the state level have also failed within the Colorado Legislature.
But this year, a group of Democrats has introduced a similar bill, which is now working its way through the state legislature.
"Without a safe place to go, we will expect to see more public drug overdose deaths," Raville adds.
Three RTD board directors have come out in favor of the overdose prevention site bill.
"For me, as a policymaker for our transit agency, I feel like I need to look at this from that public health perspective, from that holistic perspective," says JoyAnn Ruscha, an RTD director from Denver who supports the overdose prevention site proposal. "Trying to contain individuals or keep them off transit or any of these other solutions I've heard proposed that are really focused on the punitive, I don’t think it’s going to work."
In a February 15 RTD Board of Directors Operations and Safety Committee meeting, Joel Fitzgerald, the chief of the RTD Transit Police Department, presented how he wants to grow the law enforcement agency from 22 officers now to 70 by the end of this year. By 2025, Fitzgerald would like to see the agency have 140 total officers.
"We know that the smoking of illegal narcotics is a problem throughout the system," Fitzgerald said at a media roundtable on February 16. "We get the complaints every day. ... Are we going to solve the problem overnight? No. There’s absolutely no way we can."
But Fitzgerald believes that by increasing the police force for RTD and also establishing a stricter passenger code of conduct, RTD can limit drug use and other criminal activity on trains and buses.
"Sitting next to someone that is using fentanyl or marijuana...it’s just not something that a customer should have to deal with," he said. "No one should have that thrust upon them, and that’s all we’re trying to do."
But a board vote on Fitzgerald's stricter code of conduct proposals has been delayed, in part because of pushback from certain board directors and advocates, but also because of the recent death of Fitzgerald's son, Christopher, who was fatally shot on February 18 while working as a Temple University police officer in Philadelphia. A board vote on the suggested code of conduct changes has been kicked to June.
Chief Fitzgerald also wants to see a paid-fare architectural design — turnstiles would be the most obvious element — established in certain RTD stations, starting with Union Station.
"The big fix is security on every train and security that does their job, and paid fare zones with fenced areas," says Casabianca.
But Ruscha and a handful of other board directors are skeptical about these types of architectural fixes, estimating them to be prohibitively expensive and believing them to have potential to create a classist system.
"I’m not suggesting that we should permit drug use on the train or bus. Not at all. But short of completely locking down the entire system and effectively having a militarized transit, which nobody is going to ride, I don’t see how we can address this purely from a 'security perspective,'" Ruscha says, noting that she'd like to see RTD hire more transit ambassadors, internal security and outreach workers rather than cops.
"For me, I strongly believe that the focus needs to be on harm reduction, and harm reduction is not just about an individual, but also about the community at large," Ruscha says.
