This week Palisade High Schools has been raising awareness for drug addiction and overdose. Palisade has been doing this due to the rise in drug addiction in Colorado.  In 2022 Mesa county police will have confiscated 207,000 grams of illegal substances. As part of Mesa county we have to do our part to show the people of our town what is happening in our community. As part of the live above week, students wore purple ribbons to represent overdose and drug related death. In 2023 Mesa county had 347 deaths due to fentanyl alone and 118 deaths with all other drugs; this is a huge difference from 2018 and has a total of 207 deaths overall including fentanyl. The other ribbon that we have are the ribbons for drugs awareness as a whole, the red ribbon is the ribbon for drug awareness. This ribbon is actually a part of a social media group called the Red ribbon social campaign which their main goal is to have representation for families and people who have suffered from drug addiction and illegal drug use.

Palisade Freshman Talan Despain Shared how he feels about the live above week and he said “ I love how the school is caring about problems outside of the school. Also I’m happy about what we are representing. Giving respect to those lost by illegal drugs. It is a real problem and drugs are a real problem we have in Grand Junction” Live above week is an easy way for you to show respect and grace to those lost and help give caution to those that are going down the wrong path.