In The NoCo

A new vending machine opened for business recently in Boulder.  

Instead of snacks or soda, customers who visit the machine can grab safe containers for needles ... fentanyl testing strips... or condoms. And all the items are free. 

Health officials call it a "harm reduction vending machine." It’s funded by restitution money from lawsuits against manufacturers of prescription opioids. Supporters hope it reduces the spread of HIV and sexually transmitted infections, and helps prevent overdoses. 

Amanda Wroblewski with Boulder Community Health works with people who deal with opioid addiction and chronic pain. She helped set up the machine, which is the first of its kind in the Boulder area. 

Amanda spoke with host Erin O’Toole about the vending machine, which opened to the public in November.

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Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
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Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner

Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

Members of Congress are required to show up in person to vote on any measures. That creates challenges for representatives who are in the final weeks of pregnancy, or who just gave birth.  

U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Democrat from Lakewood, understands these rules from experience. And she says they’re unfair. She’s due to give birth to her second child in a few days – which means she’s under travel restrictions, and unable to be in Washington to cast votes.  

But Pettersen -- and several other representatives -- have proposed a solution. 

Pettersen wants the House of Representatives to pass a resolution that would allow new or expectant parents to vote by proxy when they can’t be in Washington. That means they’d appoint another person to vote in their place.  

But there’s been some pushback to the plan – including from House Speaker Mike Johnson, who says the proposal is unconstitutional. 

Pettersen talked to host Erin O’Toole from her home in Lakewood about being an expectant mother in Congress – and the details of her proposal.

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!

Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.
 

As President Donald Trump begins his second term, one of his promises to supporters has been to carry out what he calls the largest deportation in U.S. history. This has a number of Colorado communities on edge, especially in places where immigrants without legal status make up a large part of the population.  

It has also prompted education leaders across Colorado to prepare for how their students might be affected by immigration enforcement. The effort took on new urgency this week, after the Trump administration cleared the way for immigration arrests at schools and other sensitive locations, like churches. 

 Steve Joel was the superintendent of schools in Grand Island, Nebraska, when immigration officers raided a meat packing plant there in 2006, detaining about 250 workers without legal status.  

Those arrests in Grand Island rattled the community. And the experience taught the now-retired administrator many lessons, which he recently shared with education leaders at a conference of the Colorado Association of School Boards.  

Steve Joel joined host Erin O’Toole to discuss his advice for school leaders in the months ahead. 

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!

Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

Old firehoses. Used forklifts. Two-thousand sheets of acrylic plastic. 

These are the kinds of things you can find at repurposedMATERIALS in Lafayette. The company acquires discarded industrial materials and products and resells them instead of sending them to a landfill.  

Damon Carson founded the business in 2011 after running two trash companies. The repurposedMATERIALS location in Lafeyette is one of six locations across the country where he stores his unusual inventory and then ships it off once he finds the right buyer.  

Damon Carson talked with In the NoCo’s Brad Turner about how he built the company. 

Check out a recent profile of the business in The Denver Post.

Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!

Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

Coloradans who struggle with anxiety or depression will soon have a new treatment option. Psychedelic treatment with a licensed therapist– will be as legal in Colorado as prescription antidepressants. 

Colorado voters approved this. Starting in April, licensed healing centers can offer psychedelic therapy using psilocybin, the psychedelic component in some mushrooms.  

We wanted to understand what psychedelic therapy looks like before it becomes more widespread.  

Dr. Scott Shannon founded the Wholeness Center in Fort Collins, which offers an array of treatments for mental health, including for anxiety and depression. He’s offered psychedelic therapy for eight years and treated thousands of patients. (He’s worked with psychedelics while following the old laws that existed until this year.) 

Scott and other therapists who support access to psychedelics say it could change the way we treat mental health problems in Colorado. He walked host Erin O’Toole through a typical psychedelic therapy session. 

Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!

Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

When Colorado writer X. Ho Yen was a kid, he loved to read science fiction.   

X. Ho Yen is autistic. He liked how some sci-fi stories, like the Star Trek series, depicted a more enlightened future society where neurodivergent people were treated equally.   

Eventually he began writing his own science fiction novels. His newest release is titled Space Autistic Author’s Puzzling Innerverse. It’s different from his other books: It’s a series of puzzles that reveal the plot of a story as you solve them.   

X. Ho Yen spoke with ITN’s Erin O’Toole about the new book, his influences and how science fiction resonated deeply with him as a child.

Check out a recent profile of the author from The Colorado Sun.

Correction: An earlier version of this episode gave the incorrect city of residence for X. Ho Yen. He lives in Centennial.

Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!

Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

If you think of Baroque music, it might bring to mind ornate-sounding pieces by composers like Bach, Vivaldi or Handel. But a pair of concerts in Denver this weekend will offer listeners a different flavor of Baroque music – one that blends European-style harmonies with rhythms and percussion from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

The performances, by the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, focus on Latin American Baroque. The program will explore on the writings and music of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, an artist who lived in Mexico in the 1600s.

University of Denver musicologist and viola da gamba player Zoe Weiss will lead the concerts at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Denver. Zoe talked with host Erin O’Toole about why she’s eager to play this music in Colorado.

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!

Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

Visitors to Colorado ski resorts can ride to the top of the mountain in a sleek gondola, or take a high-speed, four-person chairlift.  

Or, if they head to one of the state’s smallest resorts, they can ride up in a trailer pulled by a snowcat. 

Cuchara Mountain Ski Park in southern Colorado operates on weekends without a functioning ski lift, and serves just a few dozen skiers per day. They charge $40 for a daily pass when many of their gigantic competitors charge more than $200.  

Cuchara recently received a $250,000 grant from the state to help with operating costs. 

We wanted to know more about how a small, nonprofit ski resort sustains itself in a state where behemoth ski resorts are the norm. Ken Clayton is with the Panadero Ski Corporation that manages Cuchara. He talked with Erin O’Toole about why he believes the place has a bright future and what makes it special.

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!

Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

You may have heard the recent news of a scandal involving state lab technicians who falsified some test results of drinking water. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment suspended further testing for now, saying the results couldn’t be trusted.  

You may also have heard about bogus test results in monitoring for water contamination near oil and gas wells around the Front Range.   

On top of that, you might also recall hearing about tainted DNA test results at the state crime laboratory earlier this year. The issue potentially may have affected hundreds of criminal cases.  

Colorado has multiple investigations into mishandling of data at several state labs.  These scandals might make you wonder if you should be concerned about your health and safety.  

“The thing that really connects them is that they all involve some element of science, and some element of the scientific process being subverted,” says John Ingold, reporter with The Colorado Sun who focuses on health and healthcare coverage.  

He’s been following these stories and joined host Erin O’Toole to offer some answers, and a bit of reassurance. 

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!

Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

When it’s time to get a good night’s rest, women have it harder than men. Women are more likely than men to have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  

But the treatments that doctors prescribe for sleep disorders, like medication or different bedtime routines, may be based more on data about male sleep patterns than female sleep patterns.  

That's a key takeaway from a new study out of the University of Colorado. The findings could eventually lead doctors to rethink how they treat sleep problems -- especially in women. 

Rachel Rowe is Assistant Professor of Integrative Physiology at CU, and she worked on the study. Rowe joined Erin O’Toole to explain her research and how sleep medicine as we know it may be short-changing women who experience sleep problems.

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!

Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner

Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.