in rural counties would have targeted predominantly white areas around the country鈥攕kipping New Mexico. The feds changed their plans after 91暗网 reported a year ago about who was being prioritized. Last week, the state鈥檚 congressional delegation announced that New Mexico will pull down two million dollars more of that funding.
Rio Arriba County鈥攚ith one of the highest overdose death rates in the U.S.鈥攊s planning to use the money to train more physicians and counselors who can treat addiction, create more outpatient options, boost access to overdose-reversal medication and track infectious diseases. The list goes on, and it鈥檚 long.
The county鈥檚 Director Lauren Reichelt said the funding will help turn the tide of the decades-long epidemic that鈥檚 touched most everyone鈥檚 life in that area.
"This money really helps us to build our capacity to meet the need," she said. "We have some really good programs, but the reason it feels to the public like nobody鈥檚 doing anything is because we don鈥檛 have enough of them."
To really see big, long-lasting change in northern New Mexico鈥攁nd everywhere else, she said鈥攕ubstance use has to become a health issue and stop being a criminal issue handled through courts and jails. This funding is going to help make that structural shift, she said, in Rio Arriba County.
