I want to thank HCN for the excellent article on the Española Valley’s heroin problem (HCN, 4/03/06: Land of Disenchantment). Ten years ago, I was an archaeologist for the Española District. My survey partner and I would regularly find artifacts of heroin use on forest lands, as well as witness the heroin users themselves stumbling back into town after a three-day bender.

No one would believe me before when I told these stories about such a beautiful rural place: Now they’ll have to. Kudos to the young anthropologist who came up with the heartbreaking, yet obvious, truth: This is what happens when you turn Santa Fe into the World’s Largest Outdoor Shopping Mall for Texans and expect the natives to be content mopping up after them.

Suzanne Koehler

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New Mexico’s greatest shame

by Suzanne Koehler, High Country News
July 24, 2006

<h1>New Mexico’s greatest shame</h1> <p class="byline">by Suzanne Koehler, High Country News <br />July 24, 2006</p> <p>I want to thank <i>HCN</i> for the excellent article on the Española Valley’s heroin problem (HCN, 4/03/06: <a href="issues/319/16202">Land of Disenchantment</a>). Ten years ago, I was an archaeologist for the Española District. My survey partner and I would regularly find artifacts of heroin use on forest lands, as well as witness the heroin users themselves stumbling back into town after a three-day bender. </p> <p> No one would believe me before when I told these stories about such a beautiful rural place: Now they’ll have to. Kudos to the young anthropologist who came up with the heartbreaking, yet obvious, truth: This is what happens when you turn Santa Fe into the World’s Largest Outdoor Shopping Mall for Texans and expect the natives to be content mopping up after them. </p> <p> <b>Suzanne Koehler</b> </p> <div class="wp-block-group hcn-print-edition-box"> <p>This article appeared in the <a href="/?p=189078">print edition of the magazine</a> with the headline <span class="hcn-magtitle">New Mexico's greatest shame</span>.</p> </p></div> <p>This &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://country-survey-collabs.info/issues/issue-326/new-mexicos-greatest-shame/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; first appeared on &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://country-survey-collabs.info Country News&lt;/a&gt; and is republished here under a &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/&quot;&gt;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i0.wp.com/www.hcn.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/cropped-HCN_Logo-Monogram_White_Sq-2.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;amp;quality=100&amp;amp;ssl=1&quot; style=&quot;width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;&quot;&gt;&lt;img id=&quot;republication-tracker-tool-source&quot; src=&quot;https://country-survey-collabs.info/?republication-pixel=true&amp;post=112265&amp;amp;ga4=G-0NS3WVPPTN&quot; style=&quot;width:1px;height:1px;&quot;&gt;&lt;script&gt; PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: &quot;https://country-survey-collabs.info/issues/issue-326/new-mexicos-greatest-shame/&quot;, urlref: window.location.href }); } } &lt;/script&gt; &lt;script id=&quot;parsely-cfg&quot; src=&quot;//cdn.parsely.com/keys/hcn.org/p.js&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</p> Copy to Clipboard

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