(1) The general assembly finds that:

(a) In an effort to address the growing opioid addiction problem throughout the nation, on July 22, 2016, President Obama signed into law the federal "Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2016", also referred to as "CARA";

(b) CARA authorizes qualified nurse practitioners and physician assistants in community- and office-based practice settings to prescribe certain medications used in the treatment of opioid addiction as a means of increasing access to treatment for opioid-dependent patients;

(c) Opioid addiction has emerged as a significant public health concern in Colorado, with over ten thousand deaths attributed to drug overdose since 2000 and the annual rate of drug overdose deaths doubling from 7.8 deaths per one hundred thousand people in 2000 to 15.7 deaths per one hundred thousand people in 2015, a rate significantly higher than the national rate;

(d) Southeast Colorado comprises six percent of the state's population and accounts for eighteen percent of admissions for heroin treatment, the Pueblo county jail sees over one thousand seven hundred opioid protocol prisoners each year, and the Pueblo fire department used an opioid antagonist to halt an opioid-related drug overdose event one hundred forty times in 2015;

(e) In Routt county, drug overdose death rates have increased nearly six-fold from 2014 to 2016, and over sixty-five percent of these deaths were related to prescription opioids;

(f) Despite the prevalence of opioid addiction and opioid-related overdose events in Pueblo and Routt counties, only three doctors in Pueblo county and one doctor in Routt county are able to provide medication-assisted treatment to opioid-dependent patients in those counties;

(g) Medication-assisted treatment, which includes the use of medication and behavioral therapies to treat individuals with opioid addictive disorders:

(I) Has proven to be clinically effective and to significantly reduce the need for inpatient detoxification services for individuals with opioid addictive disorders;

(II) Provides a comprehensive, individually tailored program of treatment for opioid-dependent patients;

(III) Is intended to achieve full recovery;

(IV) Can contribute to lowering a person's risk of contracting HIV or hepatitis C by reducing the potential for relapse; and

(V) Has improved patient survival rates, increased retention in treatment, decreased illicit opioid use and other criminal activity among individuals with substance abuse disorders, increased patients' ability to attain and retain employment, and improved birth outcomes among pregnant women who have substance use disorders;

(h) In order to increase access to addiction treatment in areas of the state where opioid addiction is prevalent, it is necessary to establish a pilot program to award grants to:

(I) Organizations or practices with nurse practitioners and physician assistants to enable them to obtain the training and ongoing support required to prescribe medications, such as buprenorphine and all other medications and therapies approved by the federal food and drug administration, to treat opioid use disorders; and

(II) Community agencies to provide behavioral therapies, in conjunction with medication treatment, to treat individuals with opioid use disorders; and

(i) Since the pilot program will provide access to treatment to individuals with substance use disorders, the use of retail marijuana tax revenues to fund the pilot program is authorized under section 39-28.8-501 (2)(b)(IV)(C).