BERNALILLO COUNTY, N.M. (KRQE) – Hundreds attended the Fentanyl Forum at the Berna Facio Professional Development Center bringing awareness, education, and resources to the community about the deadly drug. “I was just giving them the same childhood that I grew up in. With parents of addicts and seeing them overdose and seeing them use and seeing […]
BERNALILLO COUNTY, N.M. (KRQE) – Hundreds attended the Fentanyl Forum at the Berna Facio Professional Development Center bringing awareness, education, and resources to the community about the deadly drug.
“I was just giving them the same childhood that I grew up in. With parents of addicts and seeing them overdose and seeing them use and seeing them hustle. And I didn’t want that,” said Dominique Gurule, Youth Panelist.
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A member of the crowd who shared her own personal loss of a child to the drug said, “I need to help a mother save her daughter, save her son. I need to help a grandma save their granddaughter and their grandson. How do I do this?”
Those with lived experience of the drug’s effects offered the audience insight into how their own addictions began.
“At age 13, I had messed up my knee in cheerleading and had a surgery and started taking a lot of the pills the doctors prescribed me and before I knew it I was like addicted,” said Gurule.
Becoming a mother led Gurule to years of sobriety until a close friend’s death. “When he passed away, I was just trying to escape the pain and I started using and then I started seeing how my kids were reacting and how much I was neglecting them and I kind of just realized that I needed to break the cycle,” said Gurule.
While many shared their road to recovery, they also shared the dangers of the drugs that are often laced. “It’s extremely dangerous, and it’s only getting more dangerous. Most fentanyl blues on the street are showing up with xylazine in them currently. Which it makes like the skin raw, it’s more lethal so there’s other research chemicals being put into these pills,” said Ryland Olivas, Youth Panelist.
Another panel included public safety officials, moderated by KRQE’s own Dean Staley.
“Looking at some of the numbers, can you tell us what the trends are for overdose deaths in New Mexico for the past three years?” asked Dean Staley, News 13 Evening Anchor.
“In 2020, there were 305 people who died from fentanyl overdoses. That number nearly doubled in 2021, to 589, 633 in 2022, 644 in 2023,” said Dr. Heather Jarrell, UNM Health Sciences.
Seeing a reduction this year at 294 deaths as of October 1, attendees still ask, “How can we do better?” “We need to end the stigma of fentanyl use and get everybody that wants the help, the help that they need,” said Gurule.
The event was hosted by ‘Keep NM Alive’, which is a Bernalillo County community initiative, focused on raising awareness and providing essential resources to combat deadly fentanyl addiction in the state.