Advocates push for safe drug use facility at Las Cruces council

A facility built for residents to use drugs without fear of arrest or harassment or overdose may be a difficult sell in the city of Las Cruces. 

But should Las Cruces decide to fund an Overdose Prevention Center, advocates told city officials Monday that public safety and public health would improve and that residents using drugs would have more opportunities to find treatment and assistance. 

Kailin See, a director with the California-based Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, made the pitch to four city councilors and several department administrators during a work session meeting on Oct. 28. 

That pitch for an Overdose Prevention Center, simply put, is to build a facility where drug users could use drugs indoors safely, without fear of being arrested or harassed by other people on the street or dying of an overdose, all the while being connected to services.

The ultimate goal, See said, is to save lives. 

“OPCs are not a panacea, they’re not the single thing that is going to get us out of this crisis,” See said. “But they are a really critical solution.”

The center would not be unique to Las Cruces. There are dozens of similar facilities across the U.S.

“They’re bright, they’re big, they look like the kind of places that people that use drugs want to hang out,” See said, referring to the centers. 

The pitch did seem to resonate with some in the city, especially as officials consider what to do with millions in opioid settlement money while turning away others. 

"I’m looking forward to the conversation with the opioid settlement committee on why or why not something like this should be on the list of recommendations,” said Councilor Johana Bencomo, referring to a committee of residents and experts deputized to provide city and county officials with recommendations about how to spend an estimated $25 million in settlement money. 

“Harm reduction strategies are vitally important at this moment,” Bencomo added. “More and more people are dying, and so we have to interfere as boldly and as best as possible,”

Additionally, two people who identified themselves as residents in recovery from drug use said they were in favor of an overdose prevention center in Las Cruces. 

Two others, Juan Garcia and Sarah Smith of Coalition of Conservatives in Action, expressed skepticism. 

“Although my initial reaction to an OPC is no, and I did see the movie ‘Love in the Age of Fentanyl,’ if these centers can be used as a conduit for treatment forced through the judicial system or volunteer, this may be an option to consider,” Garcia said. “And I stress, maybe.”

Garcia’s reference was to a 2023 documentary about a supervised drug consumption site in Vancouver, Canada.

Smith was less open to the idea. She said that a center would communicate to the public that illegal drugs were now legal and lead to more drug use. Smith’s comments also drew criticism from other members of the public who said her logic was flawed and called on her and others to stop using pejorative language about people who use drugs. 

As with all work sessions of the Las Cruces City Council, no action was taken during the meeting. However, it was also clear that the meeting gave the Opioid Settlement Committee something to consider going forward. 

Las Cruces, Doña Ana County, the state of New Mexico and dozens of other states and cities across the U.S. sued several large pharmaceutical companies for playing a role in creating the opioid crisis, which has rocked the social order and led to thousands of deaths. Most of the companies settled with the government, sending millions of dollars meant to remediate the impact of years of overprescribing opioid drugs. 

Las Cruces, Doña Ana County and other area governments formed a committee of experts to determine how to spend that money. 

Athena Huckaby, a public health professional and committee member, told the council that they had not previously considered an overdose prevention center but would discuss it at an upcoming meeting.

“Before we bring a full suite of recommendations to you, we want to understand how to measure the success of those programs,” Huckaby said.