HOW DID DRUGS GAIN A FOOTHOLD IN NORTHERN NEW MEXICO?

Like his Chimay neighbors, Don Usner and his wife, Deborah Harris, often
ponder the question: Why are so many people they know killing themselves
with drugs?

In April, Cindy Sandoval and her nephew Matthew Carr, 10, visit the Cordova
grave site of Matthew's mother, Lori Carr, who died of a drug overdose
March 29, 1997.

The village, where Usner spent childhood summers with his grandmother and
where he and Harris have lived for 11 years, has become notorious as the
epicenter of the black-tar heroin trade in Northern New Mexico. Police
estimate 30 or more dealers are operating out of Chimay=F3, but villagers
don't seem to be getting noticeably richer from the trafficking: They are
dying.

"We keep asking, 'Why are we the heroin capital?' " says Harris, who works
with young children and families affected by drugs and domestic violence at
Las Cumbres Learning Services in Espanola. They ask Usner's mother and his
grandmother, Benigna Ortega Chavez, who recently celebrated her 101st
birthday, for some perspective.

The elders remember there being a small number of heroin users dating back
to the 1950s. But how to explain the epidemic of today?

"They can't. They're mystified," Harris says.

The epidemic may be perplexing, but it is undoubtably real. In Rio Arriba
County, the drug-related death rate is the highest in the nation - nearly
four times the national average. From 1995 to 1998, in a county of slightly
more than 35,000 people, 42 documented deaths have been attributed directly
to heroin while 35 have been attributed to cocaine, the state health
department says.

And still the death toll climbs.

In tiny Cordova (population 700), nestled between Chimay and Truchas, two
more young men died within the past two weeks: Brian Romero, 27, and Allen
Sandoval, 36.

Earlier this year, during Lent, Romero painted the words "Pray For Us" on
the paved road leading into the village. It was part memorial to a
drug-addicted uncle who had died a year before - part plea for help.

But it did not save his life, nor that of Sandoval. Romero was found dead
in his bed by his 16-year-old wife over Memorial Day weekend. Sandoval, his
close friend, attended a rosary for him on June 2. Later that night, he,
too, was found dead.

The words 'Pray for us!' are still visible on the road that leads to the
cemetery off N.M. 76 in Cordova. Brian Romero used white spray paint to
paint the slogan in memory of his uncle Lenny Martinez, who died of an
overdose. Romero himself was buried on June 3.

Both men had drug and alcohol problems, their friends and family members say=2E

"I don't know what's going on here anymore," says Cordova resident Cindy
Sandoval, who is adopting her nephew, whose mother died of an overdose. "It
seems like every day we're just burying another one."

The numbers say nothing of the many more people who struggle daily with
addiction or of the children whose parents have died of overdoses or are
too single-mind-edly pursuing drugs to care for them.

Other Northern New Mexico counties, including Santa Fe, have similarly
dismal death statistics. But it is in the hamlets of Chimay and Cordova and
Truchas, where life has traditionally depended on the extended family
structure and where it is unusual to find a family that hasn't been
directly affected by drugs, that heroin seems capable of swallowing up the
villages.

A Culture At Odds With The Modern World

Usner, author of Sabino's Map, a history of Chimay, emphasizes in his
writing the strong communal traditions that helped the villagers survive
centuries of poverty and frontier life. He is working on a collection of
his grandmother's cuentos.

In reflecting on the darker side of Chimay, Usner sees the demise of a
cohesive, vital, traditional culture that is at odds with the modern world.

"Here you have an isolated culture which has been enveloped by an
expensive, sophisticated, fast-paced culture," he says. "Many people just
don't have the coping mechanisms for dealing with that."

Individual income in Rio Arriba County remains half the national average,
and some point to the region's economic condition - likened to a rural
ghetto by University of New Mexico anthropologist Sylvia Rodriguez - as a
reason for the drug epidemic. But Usner thinks that poverty in relation to
the larger society - not poverty itself - is a more important factor.

An open grave at the Cordova cemetery awaits the body of Allen Sandoval,
who died o June 3 of an apparent overdose. He was buried next to his friend
and neighbor Genaro Trujillo, who died from an overdose two months earlier.
The cross in front marks the grave of Lori Carr, also an overdose victim.

"Before, everyone was poor. There was no money. People learned deep
cultural ways of doing things," he says. "Now, they are surrounded by media
telling them about the things they need but can't afford. I think that
feeds hopelessness."

When Usner's father came to Chimay in 1949, there was no electricity and no
paved roads.

"It makes me realize that it wasn't that long ago this area was thrust into
the mainstream," Usner says. "He loved it. He said it was the most
wonderful place with the most honest, hard-working, self-sufficient people."

Usner's father had changed his opinion by the time he died.

"He could hardly stand it here anymore," Usner says.

Usner often brings tour groups to Northern New Mexico for educational programs.

The tourists see snow-capped mountains, red rock cliffs, apple orchards,
idyllic farms. Usner tells them about the harsh realities of life in the
village.

"I tell them, 'We live in an earthly paradise of incredible problems,' " he
says.

The tourists are stunned to hear it.

Seven miles up the road in Truchas, Max Cordova, director of Los Siete
Cooperative, a nonprofit art gallery and community center, also struggles
to understand the drug problem.

Cordova, who comes from a family of 10, sees the extended family structure
as both a blessing and curse in the modern era.

"The addict won't admit he has a problem. And the families can't believe
their son or daughter is on drugs," says Cordova, who has sought to help an
addicted family member of his own. "The extended families are often
involved in drugs as well. And in those cases there's no support for the
person who is trying to quit."

Cordova's son David, 30, says eight of the 12 boys he went to elementary
school with in Chimay are dead of drug-or alcohol-related causes.

"There's a lot of pride here, but the pride needs to be focused," he says.

The younger Cordova, who aspires to be a screenwriter, graduated from The
University of New Mexico and lived in Los Angeles for a few years before
returning home to work with his father at Los Siete.

"If you haven't ever left here, it's hard to see what's outside the box,"
he says. "It's almost unacceptable to dream a big dream here."

How far away are solutions?

But signs of resistance are growing. A revitalized Chimay=F3 Crime
Prevention Organization is aggressively lobbying for law-enforcement
efforts, and it is planning a youth corps to occupy kids' time with
reforestation, trail-building and other conservation projects.

In May, pilgrims of various faiths, led by 100 hermanos from Northern
moradas marched along N.M. 76 and prayed for an end to drug-related violence.

In March, at a senate field hearing in Espanola, Sen. Pete Domenici,
R-N.M., pledged to seek federal resources for law enforcement and community
groups fighting the drug scourge. So far he has helped get about $250,000
for beefed-up law enforcement in the county.

Usner is encouraged by all of this activity.

"A lot of people are at least talking about it," he says. "They're fed up
and frustrated. They want to do something. I think things are either going
to improve dramatically or we are going to regress to a very desperate
situation."

Harris, who spends her days working with the youngest victims of drugs, is
less optimistic.

"By now, it's so endemic that I worry we don't have the tools to deal with
it," she says. "We don't have the infrastructure or the basic resources. We
can spend money now on treatment programs, but the people who need it often
don't have telephones or transportation.

"Sometimes I think we're making headway with a family, and then the person
needs a place to live. You know John Maher (who co-founded the Delancey
Street rehablitation center) said, 'You can't cure an alcoholic in a bar.'
It's the same situation here."