Pubdate: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 Source: Santa Fe New Mexican (NM) Copyright: 2003 The Santa Fe New Mexican Contact: http://www.sfnewmexican.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/695 Author: Pauline Arrillaga RIO ARRIBA FIGHTS TO CONQUER DRUG DEMONS CHIMAYO - It has been described as a place caught between heaven and hell: a sacred valley whose vistas inspire the mind and whose soil is said to have healing power, and yet it is a place of so much pain. Makeshift memorials brand the landscape with crosses, and dirty syringes often rest nearby. Death haunts those who have lost loved ones to the demon, and those who accept they might be next. Those like Renee Martinez, with her vacant, bloodshot eyes and pendant of the Virgin of Guadalupe that rests atop an oversized T-shirt shrouding her track marks. The 21-year-old has been using heroin for three years now, cocaine about half that time. On a sunny morning, the addict and a friend scout the parking lot of a methadone clinic in Rio Arriba County, hustling cash for their daily shot of the drug that cuts the craving for heroin. Renee says she is trying to quit, then acknowledges shooting up two days earlier. "You meet up with your friends, they want you to score for them, then you end up getting high with them." For years, the county of 40,000 people in Northern New Mexico has had the highest drug-overdose rate in the nation; 20 people died last year alone. In Chimayo, an old Spanish settlement where only 3,000 people live, the Drug Enforcement Administration reported 85 deaths between 1995 and 1998 attributed to high-purity, black-tar heroin. The plight is hardly unique to rural New Mexico. About 16 million Americans use illegal drugs, according to the latest National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. Use has increased among both teenagers and adults who abuse Ecstasy, marijuana, cocaine, painkillers, tranquilizers, heroin. Communities are feeling the effects. In tiny Willimantic, Conn., police scour the streets for heroin traffickers and prostitutes working to fund their habit. In nearly a dozen towns across Appalachia, methadone clinics treat clients addicted to the painkiller OxyContin. In Midwestern neighborhoods, police discover more methamphetamine labs every day: 2,725 last year in Missouri alone. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy wants to reduce nationwide drug use by 25 percent over the next five years. Deputy director Mary Ann Solberg acknowledges it's an ambitious goal. "We know we don't have a prayer unless each community across this country works with us hand in hand," she told some 40 politicians, treatment providers, retirees and recovered addicts at a meeting last month in Rio Arriba County. Yet her comments were met with some skepticism. Not unlike Renee Martinez, Rio Arriba already has taken the first step. It readily admits it has a problem. The hard part is getting clean. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Hey, Ness. Happy birthday, baby." Annette Valerio squats down, scoops up a mound of dirt with a garden shovel and plants the paper plate that reads "Happy Birthday" in a rainbow of colors. She continues until her daughter's grave is wreathed in cheerful decor, then sits on a bench and gazes at the photograph of a girl with hazel eyes and ebony hair. Venessa would have been 19. She would have graduated from high school, finished her first year of college, perhaps found a boyfriend, been building a life. Her mother imagines all the missed moments even now, a decade after her 9-year-old was shot in the jugular by a heroin-addicted burglar who broke into their home to steal, among other things, the syringes Venessa used to treat her diabetes. Annette was shot that September afternoon in 1993. Her daughter bled to death in her arms. Yet Annette feels assured that her daughter did not die in vain. With Venessa's death and others, Rio Arriba began to recognize it faced an epidemic. From the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountains outside of Santa Fe, Rio Arriba County stretches north along tributaries of the Rio Grande through pastel-colored canyons to the Colorado line. Faith and family are paramount. Each year, thousands of pilgrims walk for miles to the Santuario de Chimayo on Good Friday to scoop handfuls of dirt that many believe can heal. Grandparents accompany their children and grandchildren. Also handed down from one generation to the next: the curse of addiction. Most say it began after the second World War, when soldiers returned home to few jobs and little opportunity. The people turned first to alcohol. Then, after the Korean War, some veterans came back addicted to pharmaceuticals. Then came heroin, increased production just across the border in Mexico offering a steady supply. By the 1980s, Rio Arriba was "fully blown," as one recovered addict puts it. Despite the growing problem, little was done to fight back. Police resources were limited, and residents were scared. A few who tried to speak out got threatening phone calls. Others were torn between wanting to help and having to turn in a family member to do so. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In 1995, Chimayo newcomer Bruce Richardson attended his first community meeting about crime. When volunteers were sought to organize another gathering, he stepped up. A few months later, the Chimayo Crime Prevention Organization was born. Through his committee, Richardson brought together a small cadre of community leaders. With the help of county health administrator and victims' advocates, they organized more meetings and marches. Eventually, they grabbed the attention of the state and, finally, Congress. In March 1999, Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico convened a Congressional field hearing in Rio Arriba County. Six months later, armed with maps of drug dealers' homes plotted by Richardson and his committee, state police and federal agents descended on Chimayo and other villages in the county in raid that netted 31 heroin traffickers. It was quiet, for a while. But a new crop of dealers quickly moved in, and some of those who were busted are already back out, says State Police Capt. Quintin McShan, who oversees Rio Arriba County. Along with the raids came new money for treatment and outreach - more than $10 million in state and federal dollars. In December 1999, a nationally recognized drug-treatment foundation opened an outreach-and-prevention center in Espanola, a few miles from Chimayo. Yet the center, Amistad de Nuevo Mexico, included no inpatient beds. Amistad sent 52 clients to a residential facility in Arizona and reached 1,500 through outreach. But spokesman Karl Moffatt acknowledges there's no real way to track success. The county is renovating a 52-bed residential center north of Espanola and hopes to open the doors this fall. Meanwhile, disease-prevention specialists are working to teach addicts and their families how to use Narcan, a substance that can reverse the effects of a heroin overdose. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rio Arriba is far from heaven, but it's not quite the hell it once was. There is hope here. Annette Valerio senses it when she talks to high-school students about her Nessie and sees their tears fall. Phillip Martinez finds it in the rapt audiences of addicts he tries to help. You could even catch a glimpse of it in the vacant eyes of Renee Martinez that morning as she scouted the methadone-cliwnic parking lot for enough cash to buy her dose. On that day, she got her money and strolled out of the clinic with a grin on her face. Yet to truly curtail the culture of addiction, the people of Rio Arriba say they must ultimately address its underlying causes: the lack of jobs and opportunity, their faltering faith in the future. Toward that end, they are focusing on the children. Two offshoots of the Chimayo Crime Prevention Organization - a youth corps and local Boys and Girls Club - launched programs in the past few years to provide mentoring and activities for kids. The day after the Boys and Girls Club dedicated a building adjacent to Chimayo Elementary, about 30 children jumped rope and kicked a soccer ball across the school gymnasium. A banner on the wall read: "Real friends don't let friends take drugs." - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart