Rural, under-served towns battle rising fentanyl addiction; N.M. town long troubled by drugs seeks new ways to cope

People in Española, N.M., wait to get inside Pathways homeless
shelter for the night. (Photo by Francine Orr, Los Angeles Times)

What does a town overwhelmed by fentanyl addiction look like? "In Española, New Mexico, shoppers and workers drive past addicts roaming Riverside Drive, the main drag in this town of 10,500. Kids played in trailer parks. . . . Cars came and went from a methadone clinic. . . . Men wearing hoodies and expectant gazes drifted toward a house with barred windows," reports Jeffrey Fleishman of the Los Angeles Times. "Rallying voices are trying to fix this community under siege. But it's unclear if the story of Española, where a quarter of the population is poor, will be a narrative about how to save a town from addiction — or lose it."

The data in Rio Arriba County, which has long been troubled by drugs, are startling. "Fifty residents died from drug overdoses during the one-year period ending in July 2022, among the highest totals ever recorded in the county, according to provisional data provided by the Centers for Disease Control," reports Kevin Deutsch of The Rio Grande Sun in Española. How did this happen? Fleishman writes, "Española is a troubling American tale. Its despair and suffering echo through cities large and small, from the pitched tents and open drug use in Los Angeles to the hamlets and hollows reeling from the opioid epidemic across Appalachia. The crisis is born from a decades-long misguided war on drugs, greed in the pharmaceutical industry, an ill-equipped prison system, failed treatment programs and a nation seemingly inured to the startling toll of addiction."

For Española, drug addiction came "after the Vietnam War as heroin, cocaine and other drugs flowed in from Mexico," Fleischman writes. "Heroin settled in hard for years. . . .But over the last two years, the market has been taken over by fentanyl. . . . The town has drawn addicts and the homeless from other states has too few detox and drug treatment centers. . . . . A 'baby box' has been built at the fire station to take in unwanted infants. . . . . Shoplifters haunt the aisles at Lowe's and Walmart. Syringes for heroin that once littered sidewalks and riverbanks have often been replaced by glints of tin foil used for smoking fentanyl."

Crime is addiction's partner. Cristian Madrid-Estrada, who runs the local homeless shelter Pathways with a gun on his hip, "spends much of his time at the shelter, giving addicts beds and warmth on frigid nights. But like others in this city, he contends with burglaries, robberies and thefts carried out by fentanyl addicts desperate to fuel their next high," Fleischman reports. "The state police and the county sheriff have been called in to help Española's understaffed police department, which reported 224 burglary calls last year, up from 155 in 2020."

Resident Nicko Zamora, who used drugs for over 40 years and now works to help addicts recover, told Fleischman, "A lot of us got sick on our secrets. Drugs were the Band-Aid. It goes with our heritage in a weird, crazy way. We've seen it happen to Great-grandpa, Grandpa, Dad and all the uncles. Drug use became normal." But fentanyl isn't a normal drug. Deutsch explains that the drug has a very short life. Addicts need it "all day, every day." Fentanyl's potency as addictive and short-lived is fueling the depth of this town's addiction crisis.

Some residents finding ways to create a future. "Madrid-Estrada and Pathways co-founders Ralph Martinez and former state Rep. Roger Montoya are working to change things. Martinez and Montoya helped get a $1.8 million grant for the property that houses the shelter, a Goodwill, a wellness center and a food pantry," Fleischman reports, "Martinez was once a man under a bridge, sleeping on the dirt, shooting heroin into a neck vein. . . . John Ramon Vigil, at 27, the youngest mayor in New Mexico, is proposing the state open a regional drug treatment center. And Jeramay Martinez, who sued OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma, is raising the 4-year-old son of a fentanyl addict and plans to start an agency to help addicted mothers and children exposed to drugs in the womb."

Madrid-Estrada told Fleischman, "It does take a village. Everyone is just trying to figure out how to handle it all."