Rocky Mountain Voice

Menu

Tag: Mental health

Colorado Homelessness Linked More to Drugs Than Housing Costs Report Finds
No Comments
DENVER7, Approved, State

Colorado Homelessness Linked More to Drugs Than Housing Costs Report Finds

By: Shannon Ogden | Denver7 New study from CSI shows governments must take "treatment first" approach instead of "housing first." DENVER — A new report from Common Sense Institute (CSI) finds that Colorado ranks among the highest states in the country for homelessness and that it's not housing affordability that's driving it, it's illicit drug use, crime rates, and policing levels. The report examines 2024 homelessness data across all 50 states and the nation’s largest metro areas. The CSI reports finds that Colorado ranks: 9th nationally in total homelessness rate 7th in chronic homelessness 10th in unsheltered homelessness 7th in homelessness involving severe mental illness 7th in homelessness involving chronic substance abuse Amo...
Read More
New Colorado Laws Take Effect Jan. 1 With Sweeping Changes for Health Care Housing and Gun Shows
No Comments
Colorado Politics, Approved, State

New Colorado Laws Take Effect Jan. 1 With Sweeping Changes for Health Care Housing and Gun Shows

By Marissa Ventrelli | Colorado Politics A new year means new laws in Colorado, covering everything from health insurance and gun shows to “junk fees” and protections for wild bison. Here’s a list of laws passed during the 2025 legislative session that will go into effect on Jan. 1. House Bill 1002: Medical necessity determination insurance coverage This law codifies and clarifies mental health parity requirements for insurers, ensuring that individuals receive the same coverage for mental health and behavioral services as they do for physical care. House Bill 1030: Accessibility standards in building codes This law requires new local building codes to meet or exceed international accessibility standards. It prohibits them from providing less protection than ...
Read More
Inside the story Colorado rarely hears: Trauma, transition and the path back to truth
No Comments
Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Inside the story Colorado rarely hears: Trauma, transition and the path back to truth

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice “It took me almost two decades to realize the error,” Antoinette De La Cruz told a Fort Collins audience on November 20. “Transitioning didn’t fix anything. It delayed the inevitable. Healing.” It was the first time many Coloradans had heard a detransitioner describe her path into transition, what it cost her and what brought her back. Read RMV’s reporting on the event here. Here she shared the fuller account of her story. Where it began De La Cruz said her transition began long before hormones or surgery. “I learned very young as a little girl that I was not valued as a woman, and I definitely was not safe as one,” she said. When she was seventeen she met someone who told her she could become a man. “I had no idea you could even do ...
Read More
How to Help Parents Through the Unimaginable Pain of Losing a Child
No Comments
Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, National

How to Help Parents Through the Unimaginable Pain of Losing a Child

By Jon Caldara | Commentary, Complete Colorado Had my daughter lived she would’ve just celebrated her 25th birthday. She died of a vicious form of cancer just days before her first birthday. She was our only child at the time. Twenty-four years later, I still have no way to express what it is like to be a parent one day and then not the next. I had no idea what terror was before that day. Her death is the seminal event of my life. The world changed, never to shift back. If you’ve lost a child, you get it. If not, I envy you. I am forever indebted to those who pulled me through. Many had lost children themselves. I have tried to pay them back by being there myself for grieving parents, particularly men. We men have been conditioned to bottle up our pain (we are rarely rewarde...
Read More
The devil’s roadmap to destroy the next generation, revealed in a stark AI response
No Comments
The Free Press, Approved, Commentary, National

The devil’s roadmap to destroy the next generation, revealed in a stark AI response

By Jonathan Haidt | Commentary, The Free Press I asked ChatGPT how it would destroy America’s youth. Its answers were unsettling—and all too familiar. Earlier this year, someone started a viral trend of asking ChatGPT this question: If you were the devil, how would you destroy the next generation, without them even knowing it? Chat’s responses were profound and unsettling: “I wouldn’t come with violence. I’d come with convenience.” “I’d keep them busy. Always distracted.” “I’d watch their minds rot slowly, sweetly, silently. And the best part is, they’d never know it was me. They’d call it freedom.” As a social psychologist who has been trying since 2015 to figure out what on earth was happening to Gen Z, I was stunned. Why? Because what the AI proposed doing is pretty m...
Read More
Marijuana Addiction Rising, But Demand for Treatment Declining
No Comments
AP News, Approved, National

Marijuana Addiction Rising, But Demand for Treatment Declining

By Laura Ungar | AP News Megan Feller smoked pot several times a day and couldn’t eat, sleep or function without it. But at the time, she didn’t see the need to reach out for help. “I didn’t think cannabis was a big deal,” the 24-year-old said. “It was really socially accepted.” This attitude is common. As more states legalize marijuana, use has become more normalized and products have become more potent. But fewer of those who are addicted seek help for it. Pot use among young adults reached historic levels in recent years, according to a federally supported survey. Daily use even outpaced daily drinking, with nearly 18 million Americans reporting in 2022 that they use marijuana every day or nearly every day, up from less than 1 million three deca...
Read More
Trying to move the needle in Mesa County’s mental health crisis as leaders call the moment “historic”
No Comments
Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

Trying to move the needle in Mesa County’s mental health crisis as leaders call the moment “historic”

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice “This is historic. This is transformational. This is a game changer.” Suicide now claims about 50 lives a year in Mesa County, a rate of roughly 31 deaths per 100,000 people. That’s about one and a half times Colorado’s rate and more than double the national average. At the same time, nearly 13 percent of residents who needed mental-health care last year weren’t able to get it. Those realities form the backdrop for a local effort that has taken shape inside Canyon View Vineyard Church. The program is called BeWell, and it began with a simple question: what a Jesus-centered mental health approach could look like in a county where access is limited. How the idea took shape Sondrol said the idea started forming as he watched Compassion...
Read More
Colorado detransitioner’s story anchors Protect Kids Colorado event on safeguarding vulnerable children
No Comments
Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, Local, Top Stories

Colorado detransitioner’s story anchors Protect Kids Colorado event on safeguarding vulnerable children

By Antoinette De La Cruz | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice My name is Antoinette. I am a detransitioner. And I want to save Colorado’s children from enduring the anguish I’ve been through. I began exploring transitioning into a man during my late teenage years and spent nearly 20 years trying to turn myself into a man before I realized my mistake. Now I am mutilated and sterilized as the result of multiple surgeries with life-threatening complications. My body has been a battlefield of “gender affirmative care.” I grew up in a household of physical, mental and sexual abuse and during my childhood, I learned I had no value as a person and certainly no value as a girl. I learned that being a girl meant being a target. And I did not want to be a target. So I transitioned to...
Read More
Colorado Safe2Tell Reports Hit Record High as Student Concerns Surge
No Comments
kdvr.com, Approved, State

Colorado Safe2Tell Reports Hit Record High as Student Concerns Surge

By Jacob Factor | KDVR Fox31 DENVER (KDVR) — Colorado students made a record number of reports last school year to Safe2Tell, which the Colorado Attorney General’s Office said revealed “progress and pain” as students trust the program more but continue to face challenges. The 2024-2025 school year saw students make 31,177 reports to Safe2Tell, an 11% increase from the previous year and the highest number of reports since the organization launched in 2004. “This report tells two stories at once,” Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a press release. “It shows incredible courage and compassion. Students are stepping up to protect one another in record numbers. But it’s also a reminder that our kids are not okay. These reports reflect real distress, and our collective respo...
Read More
Colorado Parental Rights Group Pushes to Repeal Controversial Competency Law
No Comments
Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Colorado Parental Rights Group Pushes to Repeal Controversial Competency Law

By Marissa Ventrulli | Colorado Politics A group of parental rights advocates and Republican lawmakers is urging the Colorado legislature to repeal a 2024 law that made changes to the state’s competency procedures. Established over the summer, the group called “We The Parents” includes members of the Colorado Parental Advocacy Network and legislators from the more conservative wing of the Republican Party: Reps. Brandi Bradley of Littleton, Stephanie Luck of Penrose, and Ken DeGraaf of Colorado Springs. On its website, the organization describes itself as a group of parents and community leaders “who are done watching politicians ignore the voices of families.” “We’ve watched lawmakers strip away parental rights behind closed doors,” the group’s website says. “That ends now. We...
Read More