By Nicholas Gilmore
The Santa Fe New Mexican
SANTA FE, N.M. — The number of drug overdose deaths in New Mexico decreased in 2023, dropping nearly 8% from a peak in 2021, the state Department of Health announced Tuesday.
While the overall decline in the overdose fatality rate was good news for the state, officials said death rates increased significantly in Santa Fe County and slightly in Rio Arriba County, which for years has had the highest overdose fatality rates in New Mexico and among the highest in the nation.
The Health Department said in a news release fatal overdoses statewide dropped for the second consecutive year. There were 948 deaths in 2023, compared to 997 in 2022 and 1,029 in 2021.
Officials attributed the decline to public health interventions, such as the availability and use of naloxone — a nasal spray used to reverse opioid overdoses — as well as other harm reduction measures.
The downward trend in overdose deaths in New Mexico follows similar trends nationwide, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
New Mexico Chief Medical Officer Dr. Miranda Durham said in an interview Tuesday the state’s decrease was “due to the efforts of lots of people working in lots of different arenas helping to impact this problem.”
Durham pointed to the use of naloxone as well as lawmakers’ approval of the use of drug testing strips in harm reduction programs in 2022 and “adulterant checking programs” in which users can bring in drugs to be tested for fentanyl.
“For over a decade now, clinicians working on more evidence-based opioid prescribing — or more limited opioid prescribing — has probably helped fewer people just get exposed to opioids in the first place, so fewer users are coming into the pipeline,” she said. “And a lot of messaging campaigns, so just lots of education for kids, for people, for families.”
Department spokesperson Robert Nott said the majority of overdose deaths throughout the state in 2023 involved more than one substance.
The opioid fentanyl was involved in 65% of overdose deaths that year and methamphetamine was involved in 51%, while a combination of the two made up about 31% of overdose deaths, Nott said.
“These decreases are welcome news, but there is still much more to do to reduce the problem of substance misuse in New Mexico,” interim Health Secretary Gina DeBlassie said in a statement. “Substance misuse is a multifaceted and complex public health issue, and we need to continue to aggressively attack this problem.”
Although the overdose death rate in Bernalillo County, the state’s most populous, declined, Santa Fe County saw its rate jump more than 16%, from 50.4 fatal overdoses per 100,000 people to 58.7, according to numbers provided by Health Department spokesperson David Barre.
Rio Arriba County’s rate, at more than three times the statewide average, saw an increase from 141.4 overdose deaths per 100,000 people to 141.6.
Durham pointed to interventions needed throughout the state, such as increased access to addiction treatment and expansions of “innovative programs,” such as one piloted in Santa Fe and Albuquerque in which a paramedic can give someone one dose of Suboxone, a medication for the treatment of opioid addiction, after administering naloxone.
Giving someone naloxone during an overdose reverses the effects of opioids, which, in turn, immediately brings on the discomfort of withdrawal, Durham said.
A dose of Suboxone in that crucial period could buy someone time to seek treatment in the wake of the potentially traumatic experience of an overdose.
“I think the more open doors there are, the more chance that someone will have access in the moment they feel that they’re ready to tackle the problem,” she said.
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