Carla Baca woke up early the morning of May 9 to participate in the seventh annual Northern New Mexico Youth and Families Against Drugs Pilgrimage for one reason.
“I’m here supporting my kids,” the Alcalde resident said.
Baca has two teenage sons, 13 and 15 years old, and she is worried about them facing the Valley’s drug problem.
“It is a very scary situation,” Baca said.
Recent weeks have brought sobering news. Two weeks ago the SUN reported that Rio Arriba County recorded 24 fatal drug overdoses in 2008, just one off its previous high. The same week, a teenager overdosed on prescription drugs he had bought at Española Valley High School. And then this week, a Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s deputy was arrested after he allegedly held up a Santa Fe pharmacy in order to steal Oxycodone and Percocet.
“I can’t believe it’s gotten to this point,” Baca said.
She isn’t the only one that can’t believe it. More than 270 pilgrims walked the 13 miles from the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo to Chimayó to support the community’s fight against drugs. The pilgrimage began at 8 a.m. at San Juan Catholic Parish and ended just before 1 p.m. at El Santuario de Chimayó.
Pilgrimage organizer Efren Sanchez was not sure why the participation levels had fallen off from previous years when between 500 to 1,000 people would walk. He said he had done extensive outreach this year and visited school boards all across north -central New Mexico, but the only youth group to show up was the Española Valley High School football team.
“We had a bunch of really good kids,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez said one nice development was the participation of Española Mayor Joseph Maestas and City Councilors, Eddie Maestas and Alfred Herrera. He said the former mayoral administration had never walked in the pilgrimage.
Coronado High School student Nicole Chacon had two reasons for participating in the march. The first had nothing to do with drugs; several members of her family wanted to do the walk to El Santuario in honor of her aunt who had died recently of non-drug related causes. The second:
“It shows that there are a group of people against drugs,” she said.
She said overdoses are uncommon where she lives in Gallina but drugs are not.
“It’s affecting the younger generation because they see it and think it’s OK,” Chacon said.
The pilgrimage included several people who are on the front lines in the drug war. Law enforcement officers from State Police, Española Police and Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Department helped guide the marchers, and Rio Arriba County Magistrate Court Judge Joe Madrid walked in the pilgrimage.
Madrid said not everything about the drug problem is getting worse. He said last year he picked up 50 needles during the pilgrimage and this year he had found only about 10 more than halfway through the walk.
District Attorney Spence Pacheco returned to Española for the event. The former city attorney became the First Judicial District’s top prosecutor in January. Pacheco paused several seconds before responding to a question about whether the government is fighting drugs in the most effective way.
“I don’t think any of us knows what is the correct way,” Pacheco said.
She quickly added that drugs have taken a terrible toll on the Valley.
“We have to keep trying,” she said.