US fentanyl deaths are on the decline. But not in this New Mexico location at Reuters.

By Andrew Hay

ALAMO, NM (Reuters) – Twenty-eight-year-old Ambrose Begay died of a fentanyl overdose two years ago under a tree 125 yards from his home on the Alamo Navajo reservation in southern New Mexico.

Although such deaths are declining nationally, he is among a growing generation of young Americans who die from drug overdoses.

Begay’s grandfather, Manuel Giro, 77, passes the site every day as the school liaison, ushering students into classes and regularly checking in on those left behind.

Elsewhere, death and vehicular accidents have made a sanctuary for mourners in the desert, one of the poorest areas in the country.

Gyro decided not to tie a ribbon on the tree for his beloved grandson who died on October 19, 2022. He didn’t want the place to remind him of the drug epidemic tearing through the isolated community of about 2,000. Rates of overdose in the country.

“It’s going to tear us apart,” said Guerrero, a musician, jeweler and comedian whose work is at the National Museum of the American Indian and the Library of Congress, sitting outside the reservation’s community center.

Ambrose told his grandfather he felt lonely after his father, stepfather, aunt and friends died during the Covid pandemic, Gero said. To stop him from buying drugs, Guerrero would follow him to the homes of back-up dealers, some of whom were “old men” and “respectable men.” “Grandpa is going to come and kill you,” his grandson recalled.

Nationally, overdose deaths fell 21.7 percent to 89,740 in the 12 months through August 2024 compared with the same period a year earlier, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control. But the Navajo of the Alamo, like other Native American groups as well as African Americans, were marginalized.

Over the past year, overdose deaths in the Alamo area have not decreased, with rates falling from 306% per 100,000 residents in 2024 to 199 per 100,000 residents in 2024 — more than six times the national average — from 50 per 100,000 residents in 2023, according to preliminary data from the reservation. Health center.

Reversing that trend will require police and drug and rehabilitation centers for Native Americans on reservations that currently have none, said two dozen tribal members and advocates interviewed by Reuters. The tribe needs to address the basic needs of its 56% population living in poverty, such as water and food security, he said. The reservation is an 85-mile drive southwest of New Mexico’s largest city, Albuquerque, on a sometimes impassable dirt track.

“Lost Generations”

Across the United States, the distribution of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone and more accessible addiction treatment are among the reasons the Biden administration has cited for the drop in overdose deaths.

President Donald Trump’s pre-election pledge to stop fentanyl near the US-Mexico border and lower grocery prices resonated with tribal members, many of whom face resource shortages in the Democratic-controlled Navajo Nation and New Mexico state. One of the many executive orders Trump issued on his first day in office was to designate drug-terrorist organizations.

Trump won Socorro County by nearly three points on Nov. 5, marking the first time the area has endorsed a Republican presidential candidate in 36 years, part of a shift to the right across Indian Country.

In the Alamo, Harold Peralta, a 54-year-old peer supporter, tries to get tribal members into detox and rehab, but many end up spending days or weeks in facilities he considers “prisons,” he said.

“We’re losing the younger generations, they’re wandering around because of the drugs,” recalls one tribal member in her twenties who sought treatment days after an overdose. “We made some recoveries and that’s what kept me going.”

In 1907, the U.S. government moved the tribe south after hiding in the mountains, about one-tenth of the size of Rhode Island, about 100 miles southeast of the vast Navajo Nation.

The Alamo Navajos are under the jurisdiction of several jurisdictions: their tribe, the Navajo Nation and the United States, as well as Socorro County and the State of New Mexico. Sometimes they find it difficult to get support from anywhere.

“It’s become a nightmare, resources have struggled to reach that community. We’re talking about the great Navajo Nation and the resources of the state,” said New Mexico House Representative Michelle Abeta, whose district includes Alamo.

Abeta, 41, a member of the Navajo Nation Jan. 1, wants to bring drug treatment centers to the area and help fund people who, like her, are raising the children of family members suffering from addiction.

Then there is law enforcement.

Julie Guerrero, Manuel Guerrero’s cousin-in-law, recalled that when a drug dealer came to her front door in September 2023 and threatened to kill her and her husband, the tracker showed the phone was inside their home. She said she had nothing to do with the businessman.

A Navajo Nation police officer said it took six hours to get there from a station near Crown Point, 100 miles away. The officer was unable to arrest the man because he was not a native. The Navajo Nation Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Alamo residents overpowered the businessman and deputies with the Socorro County Sheriff’s Office eventually arrested him, said Gero, 51, a behavioral health case manager at Alamo Health Center.

“It’s destroying us all, our generations are dying in front of us,” said Gero, who has tried unsuccessfully to get nieces and nephews treated with Suboxone, a drug used for opioid dependence.

In a home warmed by a wood-burning stove, a 26-year-old addicted mother recounts how she and her sons locked their room and refrigerator. The mother, who did not want to be identified, said they tried to stop her daughter from stealing to pay for the party. He buys a pill of ground beef.

Tara Jaramillo, a speech-language pathologist and non-tribal, says captive children are turning to drugs to cope with the “generational trauma” of 19th-century ethnic cleansing, Indian boarding schools, Covid-19 deaths and parental addictions.

“These children may not have food, they may not have clean water, they may not feel safe at night,” she said.

Jaramillo, a former Democratic state House representative who attended a reservation school, was defeated by Republican Rebecca Dow in the November 5 election on a promise to secure the US-Mexico border.

“Fentanyl deaths and overdoses and addictions have touched the lives of every family we’ve talked to and Democrats have done nothing,” said Dow, who represents a district bordering the reservation.

Solution

At the front desk of Walmart (NYSE: ) in Taos, New Mexico, tribal member Myreon Apachito, 31, works as a team leader. Last year, he spent seven months in rehab for addiction to heroin, meth and fentanyl.

He hopes to break his family’s cycle of addiction. His parents, both former alcoholics, are the inspiration.

“My mom said the reason she started drinking was because her parents hurt her, and I was doing drugs because my parents weren’t there,” said Apachito, who plans to stay in Taos.

In the Alamo, he said, fentanyl is easier to obtain from suppliers at pre-arranged locations along Interstates 25 and 40, drug-transportation routes east and north of the site.

The last full-time police officer on the Alamo reservation, Cecil Abetta, son-in-law of Michelle Abetta, who retired 12 years ago, is now a member of the powerful school board. He is trying to set up a detox center and bring federal and Navajo police to bus dealers.

“There has to be a solution to it, there can be no solution,” said Abeta, 64, who recently hired two tribal members to train him as reserve police.