Price, purity & availability fuel NM drug use

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - By any measure, New Mexico's drug problem is widespread.

When the Centers for Disease Control announced in November that death rates for prescription drugs had reached epidemic proportions nationally, New Mexico was at the top of the list.

The Albuquerque Journal reports that teen drug use in New Mexico — heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine — is double and triple the national average, depending on the drug.

The Department of Health estimates there are 25,000 needle-using addicts in the state.

And Department of Justice statistics show that more than half of the New Mexico inmates in state prisons and local jails are arrested for drug-related crimes.

The state's deadly love affair with drugs is fueled by price, purity and availability.

Just how cheap and pure was illustrated last year during an undercover operation that led to the arrests of 11 user/dealers in an area around a high school in Albuquerque.

Undercover agents bought grams of heroin for $100 — the same price as in 1977. The purity of the heroin agents purchased was three to four times the purity level of heroin sold just 10 years ago. The heroin was cheaper than prescription opiate painkillers on the street.

"What is shocking today is the frightening availability of heroin and painkillers," said Joseph Riggs, an attorney who has represented criminal defendants for more than 30 years, including many drug addicts. "It is a communitywide problem, no longer confined to specific neighborhoods."

Conventional wisdom can lead the public to believe this epidemic is isolated to young people in their teens or early 20s.

While heroin and prescription drug overdoses do kill young people, teenagers abusing drugs are not the cause of New Mexico's national standing in overdose deaths.

Out of 2,200 drug-induced deaths from 2005 to 2009, just over 1,900 were men and women 25 years or older.

Still, some steps to battle drug abuse have been taken and are showing some results at the state and local level.

The number of drug overdose deaths was lower statewide in 2009 and 2010, down from a high of 500 in 2008 to 466 in 2009 and 477 in 2010.

The State Board of Pharmacy voted in June to increase monitoring of prescription opioid painkiller drugs.

The State Medical Board is making voluntary guidelines on opioid drug prescriptions mandatory for doctors and others.

Parents of teens who died of drug overdoses or who are fighting addiction have joined together to educate other parents and push for programs and reforms — much like Mothers Against Drunk Driving did decades ago to fight the state's drunken driving problem.

"I don't need to talk to a gymnasium full of kids," said Keith Brown, assistant special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement office in Albuquerque. "I need to talk to gymnasiums full of parents. They're the ones we need to educate."

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Information from: Albuquerque Journal