Fentanyl-related deaths in the US are declining. But not in this reservation in New Mexico Reuters

By Andrew Hay

ALAMO, NM (Reuters) – 28-year-old Ambrose Begay died of a fentanyl overdose under a tree 125 meters from his home on the Alamo Navajo Reservation in southern New Mexico two years ago.

He is among a generation of young Native Americans who are losing their lives to drug overdoses in increasing numbers, even as the number of such deaths is declining across the country.

Begay’s grandfather, Manuel Guerro, 77, passes the site every day as a school liaison, transporting students to class and checking up on those who are regularly absent.

Elsewhere, mourners have made shrines to overdose deaths and traffic accidents among the arid, rolling landscape of one of the country’s poorest reserves.

Guerro chose not to tie a ribbon to the tree for his favorite grandson, who died on Oct. 19, 2022. He didn’t want the site to remind him of the drug epidemic sweeping his isolated community of about 2,000, which has among the highest overdose death rates in the country .

“It almost tore us apart,” said Guerro, a musician, jeweler and comedian whose work is in the National Museum of the American Indian and the Library of Congress, as he sat outside the reservation’s community center.

Ambrose told his grandfather he felt lonely after his father, stepfather, aunts and friends died during the COVID pandemic, Guerro said. To prevent him from buying drugs, Guerro followed him to the homes of dealers from the reservation, some of whom were “elderly people” and “respected people.” His grandson said “grandpa, they’re going to come and kill you,” Guerro recalls.

Nationally, overdose deaths fell 21.7% to 89,740 people 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 Alamo Navaho, as well as other Native American groups, as well as African Americans, were left out.

Overdose deaths on the Alamo reservation did not fall last year, increasing by about 306% 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 of the health center reserve.

Reversing that trend will require police on the reservation, which currently has none, and closer detoxification and rehabilitation centers catering to Native Americans, according to about two dozen tribal members and advocates interviewed by Reuters. In the long term, the tribe must address basic needs such as running water and food security for the 56% of its population who live in poverty, they said. The preserve is a 85-mile drive southwest of Albuquerque, New Mexico’s largest city, on a sometimes impassable dirt road.

“GENERATION LOSSES”

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

President Donald Trump’s campaign promises to stop fentanyl use near the U.S.-Mexico border and lower food prices have resonated with tribal members, many of whom have complained about a lack of funding from the Navajo Nation and Democratic-controlled New Mexico state. Among the series of executive orders Trump issued on his first day as president was one that designated drug cartels as terrorist organizations.

On Nov. 5, Trump won the reservation and surrounding Socorro County by about three points, marking the first time the area has supported a Republican presidential candidate in 36 years, part of a rightward shift across Indian Country.

In Alamo, peer worker Harold Peralta, 54, tries to get tribal members into detox and rehab, but says many spend days or weeks in facilities they consider “prison.”

“We’re losing the younger generations, they’re wandering around lost to drugs,” said Peralta, who recalls a tribal member in her twenties seeking treatment only to die a few days later of an overdose. “We have some recovery and that’s what drives me.”

The reservation, to which the U.S. government moved the tribe in 1907 after it hid in the mountains to the south, is an enclave about one-tenth the size of Rhode Island about 100 miles southeast of the vast Navajo Nation.

The Alamo Navajos are under the jurisdiction of a number of jurisdictions—their tribe, the Navajo Nation, and the United States, as well as Socorro County and the state of New Mexico. Sometimes it is difficult for them to get support from anywhere.

“It became a nightmare, resources were struggling to reach that community. We’re talking about resources from the greater Navajo Nation and the state,” said New Mexico House Representative Michelle Abeyta, whose district includes the Alamo.

Abeyta, 41, a member of the Navajo Nation who took office Jan. 1, wants to bring addiction treatment centers to the area and provide financial support to people raising children of family members suffering from addiction, as she does.

Then there is law enforcement.

Julie Guerro, Manuela Guerra’s cousin, recalls when a drug dealer showed up at her front door in September 2023 and threatened to kill her and her husband, claiming a location search engine showed his phone was at their home. She said it had nothing to do with the dealer.

She said it took six hours for a Navajo Nation police officer to arrive from the nearest station in Crownpoint, about 100 miles away. The policeman could not arrest the man because he was not local. Navajo Nation Police did not respond to a request for comment.

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

“We’re all going to be wiped out, our generations are dying before us,” said Guerro, who has tried unsuccessfully to get nieces and nephews treated with suboxone, a drug used to treat opioid addiction.

On the reservation, heated by a blazing wood stove, the mother of a 26-year-old addict describes how she and her sons lock their rooms and the refrigerator. The mother, who did not want to be identified, said they were trying to stop her daughter from stealing to pay for the fentanyl. A package of ground beef buys a pill.

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

“These children don’t have food, they may not have running water, they may not feel safe at night,” she said.

Jaramillo, a former Democratic state House representative who went to school on a reservation, was defeated in the Nov. 5 election by Republican Rebecca Dow, who ran on a promise to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Deaths, overdoses and fentanyl addiction have touched the lives of every family we’ve spoken to, and Democrats have done nothing about it,” said Dow, who represents a district that borders the reservation.

DECISION

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

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

“My mom said the reason she started drinking was because of the trauma her parents gave her, and I was doing drugs because my parents were never there,” said Apachito, who plans to stay in Taos.

In Alamo, he said fentanyl is easy to obtain from dealers at prearranged locations on Interstates 25 and 40, the drug’s transit routes east and north of the reservation.

The Alamo Reservation’s last full-time police officer, Cecil Abeyta, Michelle Abeyta’s father-in-law, 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 in the federal and Navajo police to arrest the dealers.

“There has to be a solution to this, there can be no solution,” said Abeyta, 64, who recently hired two tribal members to train as reservation officers.