AURORA — Facing a surge in opioid abuse and related overdose deaths, Colorado authorities on Monday unveiled a plan to distribute the life-saving drug naloxone — known by its trade name, Narcan — to first responders across the state’s hardest hit areas.

The program “will begin saving lives within days,” said Rob Valuck, head of the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention and a University of Colorado pharmaceuticals professor. “(It will) will save dozens to hundreds of lives over the coming year here in Colorado. It’s just critically important.”

The initiative will send 2,500 dual-dose packages of the handheld opioid blocker to law enforcement and other first responders in 17 counties with high rates of drug overdose deaths. It comes at a time when officials say someone in Colorado dies of an overdose roughly every nine and a half hours and the rate of opioid deaths has surpassed that of traffic fatalities.

Called the Colorado Naloxone for Life Initiative and spearheaded by Attorney General Cynthia Coffman’s Office, the program will be distributed over the coming months.

Colorado ranks second in the nation for opioid abuse. Increasing access to naloxone is one way to address this. #COHealth — CO Health Institute (@COHealthInst) September 19, 2016

“This is a major project that we have coordinated,” Coffman said Monday morning at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus. “… We are experiencing a public health crisis in Colorado. People are dying everyday from opioid overdoses.”

Coffman’s office dedicated $264,500 to fund the initiative, which she says came from money won in a pharmaceutical lawsuit settlement.

Opioid use has reached crisis levels across the nation, including in Colorado, where heroin overdoses are up almost 350 percent in the past five years, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA says heroin has become its main focus in the state.

The problem has been exaggerated in rural areas, where there are fewer treatment resources. Authorities say that’s why the the Colorado Naloxone for Life Initiative includes Baca, Bent, Clear Creek, Crowley, Delta, Dolores, Jackson, Las Animas, Otero, Phillips and Sedgwick counties.

There will be 10 trainings on how to put into action the easy-to-use drug conducted over six regions between through the end of November. All are free and open to the public.

The Thornton Police Department will be one of the first to roll out Narcan to its patrol officers as part of the project, said Cmdr. Jerry Peters. He explained overdose calls have become routine for the force and his officers feel its implementation is a must-have.

“I know that, for the city of Thornton, our paramedics have used Narcan several times in the last year, two years,” Peters said.

Suzi Stolte, of the JP Prescription Drug Awareness Foundation, said the initiative is a crucial step in lowering opioid abuse and deaths in Colorado. Her own 37-year-old daughter died of perscription opioids in 2011 after paramedics found her not breathing on Mother’s Day.

“If they had naloxone at their disposal, might she have still been alive today?” Stolte asked.