Alcohol

How a 25¢-per-drink alcohol tax fell apart

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The Santa Fe New Mexican chronicled how efforts to increase taxes on alcohol over the past 30 years have hit a brick wall at the Roundhouse. Lawmakers budged in 2023, raising the tax per drink by a penny — far short of a 25 cent proposal. Illustration by Marjorie Childress. Ever seen someone make a quarter disappear? You did if you watched this year’s legislative session, where advocates seeking to stem the state’s tide of alcohol-related deaths proposed a 25¢-per-drink tax — and lawmakers shrank it down to hardly a penny.

Health

Proposed Office of Alcohol Prevention steps up ambition, but is short on vision

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The New Mexico Department of Health has asked the legislature for $5 million to build an Office of Alcohol Prevention, which would expand the staff focused on reducing excess drinking from a single epidemiologist to a team of 13. If created, the office would represent a significant increase in resources and personnel focused on the state’s epidemic of alcohol-related deaths, by an agency long cowed into inaction against the challenge. But some experts who reviewed an internal description of the proposed office, which New Mexico In Depth obtained by public records request, said the plan was not bold enough to meet the crisis. Tim Naimi, who directs the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria, said that to reverse the state’s climbing death rate would require sustained strategies that influence drinking by everyone in the state, not just those who have already developed serious problems with alcohol. But he said the activities highlighted in the plan were redundant with existing practices and lacked focus and resolve.

Food Security

COVID grew New Mexico hunger relief network

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Two years ago, in March 2020, Delfine Gabaldon visited a food pantry for the first time. He’d been laid off from work at the start of the coronavirus lockdown and didn’t know how he would make ends meet. 

For 32 years, Delfine had worked as a mechanic. “I loved the job so much, I’d almost do it for free,” he said. But the 51-year old had recently lost several toes to type 2 diabetes, and nerve damage from the disease made walking difficult. These days, he could only stand for 15 minutes at a time before the pain became unbearable, and when he lay down, he got vertigo.  

“I spin the wheel every morning I get up, depending on whether I’m gonna have nausea or my feet are going to affect me all day,” he said. But losing his toes had been a wake-up call.

Abandoned Uranium

Climate change and the third world, in New Mexico

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In reporting two recent stories about abandoned uranium mines north of Church Rock, N.M., I heard residents say several times that they want federal officials to take action, not just more talk about cleaning up radioactive waste left practically in their backyards for 40 or more years. I also heard how exhausting it is for the people who live next to this waste to repeatedly tell their stories to people like me, people concerned, even outraged about the situation, but who don’t live there–journalists, government officials, and activists from elsewhere–who have the luxury to come and go. “…sometimes, you get so frustrated talking about these things,” said Edith Hood, a resident who lives in the Red Water Pond Road community near the mines, in remarks to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at their public meeting in Gallup last Friday. “…we, Indian country, we are like the people that live in the third world, in the United States,” Hood said. “Nobody listens to us.

Covid-19

New Mexico drags feet on public health task force sought by lawmakers

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In March, as the state scrambled to vaccinate New Mexicans after a surge in COVID-19 cases that overwhelmed hospitals nationwide, lawmakers passed legislation asking the health department to convene a task force to strengthen the state’s public health system. The panel would be one of the first of its kind in the U.S. and as other states look to do the same could serve as a model, according to American Public Health Association Executive Director Dr. Georges Benjamin. But five months later – and with less than four months remaining to prepare its recommendations for lawmakers – the task force has not met and it’s unclear when it will. 

“I’m worried,” said New Mexico Public Health Association President Shelley Mann-Lev. “We have not been given any explanation for the delay. …

Chaparral

Chaparral residents seek alternative to new El Paso Electric natural gas unit

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Ida and David Garcia outside their home, less than a mile away from the Newman Power station, in Chaparral, New Mexico. Image: Claudia Silva. When Ida Garcia looks out the kitchen window during cool mornings, plumes billowing from a power plant less than a mile away in Texas obscure her view of the broad Chihuahuan desert skies and expansive vistas. During hot summer days the plumes disappear but she still worries. 

“We see that plant everyday,” said Garcia of the Newman Power Station that sits between Chaparral, New Mexico and El Paso, Texas. “We see how all this smoke comes out from the stacks… We know that it’s not just steam.

A century of federal indifference left generations of Navajo homes without running water

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When Julie Badonie was growing up in the small Navajo community of Tohatchi in the 1940s, her father drove a horse-drawn wagon early each morning to a nearby spring. There, he filled wooden barrels with water the family would use that day to drink, cook, and wash. 

Badonie, the youngest of seven children, including brothers who fought in World War II and the Korean War, or one of her siblings would go along. She remembers it as fun. At home, a hose siphoned the water into buckets to bring into the house. Badonie left for boarding school in kindergarten, first just a few miles across town, then several days’ travel away in Crownpoint, where an older sister worked as a cook, and eventually, all the way to Albuquerque for high school.

As water reaches eastern Navajo communities, it brings possibilities and homecomings

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For a while, Chee Smith Jr. thought he was going to have to send his father to die among strangers. His family lives at Whitehorse Lake, a Navajo chapter where, until a few years ago, roughly 550 of 700 residents had no running water in their homes, including Smith’s. As Smith’s father aged and his health worsened, it became harder and harder for him to live at home. “We had to haul water from the chapterhouse or the watering points every day for just basic things — for cooking, for laundry, for stuff like that, and also for our livestock,” Smith said. “It takes a big toll.

Health

I Received Tips to Look Into How a New Mexico Hospital Treated Premature Babies. Getting Data Was Nearly Impossible.

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This article is copublished with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. New Mexico In Depth is a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network. It’s not unusual for health care reporters to get out-of-the-blue calls or emails from people in the industry. But when three clinicians from Albuquerque hospitals reached out to me to share concerns about the state’s largest for-profit maternity hospital, Lovelace Women’s, I took note. Two of the tipsters worked at Lovelace. None knew the others had contacted me, but all three had concerns about how Lovelace cared for its most premature babies. 

These delicate preemies are frequently born weighing less than 2 pounds.

Fathom

Los dos hospitales tienen tasas de mortalidad infantil similares, hasta que se observa a los bebés extremadamente prematuros

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Read in English. Nota: Este reportaje contiene la descripción de la muerte de un recién nacido. ProPublica es un medio independiente y sin ánimo de lucro que produce periodismo de investigación en pro del interés público. Suscríbete para recibir sus historias en español por correo electrónico. New Mexico In Depth es miembro de ProPublica Local Reporting Network. Era el cambio de turno de la mañana en el Hospital de Mujeres Lovelace de Albuquerque, Nuevo México.