Santa Fe County NM’s Post

Transcript

Today we're going to talk about transportation and the fentanyl crisis. Olivia and I went to a conference last week to New Orleans and we both had some car trouble. Actually my car, I've had it for 10 years. And I was just driving and all of a sudden I hear it just starts to get louder and louder. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, how do I fix this? So I just turn the volume up on my on my radio and that seemed to to drown out the noise simultaneously. I also have an older vehicle, Chevy grill, by the way. So I'm, I'm cruising and all of a sudden the engine light comes on and it says, you know, no oil. And I'm like, what do you mean no oil? Like I just checked yesterday. I'm not sure what's going on. So I had no time to add any oil. I had to go straight to the airport. So when we came back from our trip there, I was trying to figure out, you know, where I was going to stop and change the oil. And I later found out that I had a broken gasket, like a seal. Right. And so finally got that replaced yesterday, but it's been stressful with the cards, hasn't it? Gotta say, I've got an electric vehicle, a Nissan Leaf 2021, and it only has 20 moving parts as opposed to 200. So one of the great things about electric vehicles, you know, there are challenges, but one of the absolute great things is they don't break down. No oil change. It's awesome. That's great. I think it might be time to upgrade my car. Exactly. Do something good for the environment and yourself. I have my second only grown up car of my life. It was built within the last decade, but my primary mode of transportation and the reason I relocated the Las Cruces is that I have an old Harley, an 89 Sportster nice that I spend as much time working on probably as I do writing it. And weekend before last we rode from Las Cruces up to. Cloudcroft for barbecue and on the way up the mountain, my transmission on the motorcycle went out. So I had to ride the 100 miles home with only second and 4th gear. Ohh. My gosh. So you drove here from Las Cruces for the podcast. Yeah. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining us. On your bike or in your on 2nd gear for bike is on the block this weekend. OK. Would you mind both of you just introducing yourselves briefly? My name is Phillip Fuddy. I've been in working in public health for here in New Mexico for a long time, primarily in harm reduction work and I'm currently with an international organization called Vital Strategies that is the public health does the public health work of Bloomberg initiatives and I'm working with the Department of Health here to implement some new programs. I'm Shelly Mann Lev and I worked in New Mexico for their. 3 decades, 2 decades with the Santa Fe Public Schools and I've had the privilege of working in Santa Fe County. I was the, the founding director of the Santa Fe Prevention Alliance and really my, my focus and my public health career has been prevention and worked with the Santa Fe public schools for 20 years. Also working on prevention of climate change. That explains you're a push on electric vehicles. It explains my encouragement. Yes, yes, yes. We cannot, we can all participate. Phil, you mentioned you've worked in harm reduction and that that's a perfect segue into. Our social media campaign, part of those campaigns are on harm reduction and they have they have some different messaging never use alone rescue buddy. And a lot of the questions on there are people that don't know what it is. A lot of them are angry about they're not sure what harm reduction is. Harm reduction really it's model behavior change model. Like we talked about the stages of change where we work with, you know, there's people, you know, people might someone might be smoking cigarettes and they don't they're not thinking. It's all about it. And then, you know, they start thinking maybe they wanna quit and then they start taking some practice action to quit. And then there's, you know, they achieve that and then there's maintenance and then they smoke again one night and they start over again. So harm reduction falls like in mitigating the risk for somebody who is either using illicit substances or using, you know, medications and things that don't belong to them. Using list licit or legal substances illicitly or illegally. We try to work with people on those mitigation strategies and then you know the the biggest thing that happens is isolation with folks, you know, they start encountering stigma. They don't want anybody to know what they're doing. They start having a hard time things they start not going the way that they think they're going to go and and that is. Installation is really what kills people, right? That's the never use alone. Hopefully that clears up some questions for all our listeners and all our followers on social media. Educate us a little bit about, you know. If people are using substances, why, why are we delivering a message of, you know, don't use a loan and there are other resources for people to get support? What people are really missing is connection, right? And this is something I previously worked for an organization here called the Mountain Center and I ran their harm reduction program for rural Santa Fe and Rio Reba counties and city of Espanola and. You know, I have new people, new staff come on all the time and they're asking, you know, you know, about the things that we would do, whether it was giving away food or medical stuff or, you know, clean syringes or naloxone or whatever it was. And they're like, we just, you know, what are we doing? This isn't like solving any problems. And I'm like, well, actually what we're doing is providing connection to the work that we're doing is inviting people in to have somebody else. Talked to and to participate and everything and and in the process of creating that community bringing people forward basic needs aren't being met right so when people don't have adequate housing shelter food community family support you know you all are creating spaces for that connection and and that community so that then recovery doesn't seem such a difficult pathway if I'm understanding correctly once you get people involved in in. Uh, community and care. They almost spontaneously quit using drugs after, after a while, right? They can, they're, they don't have to hide it anymore. They can see a doctor, they can get a job, they can do all these things and then they're like, I don't need the drug anymore. And, and that cycle has been found to be about 10 years. Sorry to change the subject just a little bit. Umm, thinking of all the comments we're getting on social media, on the I take, I manage our social media, so I see everything that comes through. One of them is kind of just questioning what is Narcan Narcan and why are people so against it. Naloxone is a medication that was. Developed in its current form. There were different versions of it in the 50s and 60s, but in the early 70s. That was designed with the intention of using it in medical settings in operating rooms, because they used to rely heavily on morphine and and stuff as an anesthetic. And now they actually use fentanyl, right, fairly commonly. And naloxone is was a medication that they could use that blocks the effects of opioids. I think that as far as why people are against it, all we've had instilled in our brains. Is that drugs are bad and people that use them are bad and we have to stop drugs, right? Or just say no, right? People are still on this, which was a campaign a long time ago, which I don't think is really effective anymore. It wasn't effective then either, right? I mean, it's again, for all the reasons that Phil's talking about, right? We treat people who use drugs worse than we treat murderers and rapists and people who pedophiles. And domestic violence folks, if you look on thing, you know, 70% of the people in our prisons and we have the largest incarcerated population on the planet, 70% of them are there for drug related crimes. I want to speak to almost like the other side of harm reduction and it relates to you. You're talking about just saying no. We wish just say no worked. It never worked. You know, I'm speaking on behalf of prevention and the way in which prevention and harm reduction, you know, Phil's talking about. Harm reduction from an absolutely critical, I'm going to say life saving in every way, both physically and that connection way strategy and approach. It's, you know, an approach of respect for people who use drugs and, you know, to support them, to provide them with supports and, and Narcan is, and it's a phenomenal life saving measure. And I, I have to say for your listeners, we hope that every one of them has Narcan in Santa Fe County and maybe Chanel can share how to get it because it needs to be part of all of our first aid kits. Umm, because unfortunately we might find ourselves in a situation, you know, we all live in the world and there may be somebody who needs our help and it's an incredible thing to save a life. I'll just briefly share that I was involved when our law enforcement officers were first asked to carry Narcan and, and they didn't want to, I have to say many of them, you know, and I'll never forget this one of the, one of the higher up folks said, you know, if we could save one life. All I'll back it even though many people on the force for all the stigma reasons Phil's talking about and they they did a study over six months and in fact they saw that unfortunately the paramedics couldn't get there in you know that they were there earliest and 1st. So he based on that study to his credit changed his mind and said we are all going to carry Narcan. And then I went to the ceremony after they had been doing this for a year when he honored 6 different Santa Fe officers who had saved. Lives with Narcan and these, I mean, our law enforcement officers made changes in their attitudes because they recognized that they were helping people live and they were providing the opportunity for someone to, you know, make those changes when they were ready because they were supported by our community. When we talk about harm reduction, I think some of the concerns for people are why are we talking to our youth about harm reduction? We know it is healthier and better for our youth, in particular for their developing. Brains to. Not use drugs at all or to wait as long as possible. Every year we get whether it's, you know. Better to wait till you're 15 or 18 or 21 every because it does affect brain development and we wish, we wish, but the truth is many of our youth. Do. Experiment. Some of them actually get addicted and we want to keep them as safe as possible. And in today's world, you know, you were asking about what fentanyl is. And fentanyl is pretty much if someone you know who used to use heroin or used to use an Oxycontin, that prescription opioid, nowadays, if you buy it on the street, it has fentanyl in it. It may only be fentanyl. And in many cases, other kinds of pills and powders, anything that's not purchased from a pharmacy, you know that you've picked up. Or someone you love is picked up for you with your name on it. Unfortunately, you can't really know whether there's fentanyl in it. We do have another harm reduction strategy besides Narcan called fentanyl test strips. You know you can, Some people have access to those. They can test it. But again, unfortunately, lots of people don't test what they use. We have got to give the tools. Never use alone, right? We've got to give the tools. It is possible with pills and powders if you take something. That you're putting yourself at risk. They want to give an opportunity to Chanel Delgado to talk a little bit. Thank you. And thank you to both the guests today for coming on and talking about this important, important conversation around substance use. And I also want to just bring up one thing before I jump into that is trauma, right? Like, we live in a community where there's lots of generational trauma. And I think oftentimes that's a forgotten piece. And when you sit across from someone who's struggling and you hear their story. It doesn't not make sense. It makes perfect sense. And so I think empathy and compassion is goes a long way. And so I've never met someone who's using that has chose this path and this is where they want it to be. And so just wanted to say that. But I've been doing this work now for two years and I have a privilege of working with a great team here in Santa Fe County, including these two individuals here. And we have created a resource list that you can access. That Santa Fe County andm.gov/never use alone. And there's a whole resource specific to Santa Fe County agencies and organizations that do this work. I do want to shout out to our local Santa Fe County Crisis Center, La Sala, where you can access Narcan fentanyl test strips. And if you are in a substance use crisis and you're wanting to get some support, that's a great place to start for our local Santa Fe fans here. But there's tons of resources on that resource list. I do have pamphlets. Our agencies, if they're interested and I'm happy to engage in those conversations with people. My number is on our website and I'm happy to do those connections as needed. Before we close out, I wanted to also go back to the transportation of my car. Just kidding. Thank you all for for joining us today. We really appreciate it. I think this is was a great podcast, very informational. Thank you all so much. And this is beyond County Lines with Daniel and Olivia.