The DEA may as well just fire Hellfire missiles at Española
Sent to newspapers 6/26/2026
The Feds just let New Mexicans be cannon fodder in the fentanyl war
In New Mexico, we’re used to hard truths. But the Associated Press and Albuquerque Journal reporting this week about the Drug Enforcement Agency letting millions of fentanyl pills disappear into New Mexico communities to support undercover operations was a real gut punch.
DEA whistleblowers and the former U.S. Attorney for the State of New Mexico spoke on the record to journalists about New Mexico operations covering the period from 2023-2025. During that same period, some 1,500 New Mexicans overdosed on fentanyl. In 2023, 613 did. In 2024, the number is estimated at around 500. The total number for 2025 is not available, but while the rest of the country saw a 14% decline in drug overdose deaths, New Mexico saw a 21% increase.
New Mexico’s overall drug overdose rate of 51.6 deaths per 100,000 population is more than double the national average. 65% of our overdoses are attributed to fentanyl. This stresses our first responders, emergency rooms and hospitals.
The fentanyl is getting worse. Street samples, which have typically shown 1% concentrations of fentanyl, in September of 2025 were spiking as high as 20%. Albuquerque remains an epicenter for trafficking, addiction, and overdoses, but Rio Arriba County, home to the city of Española, has an overdose rate four times that of the rest of the state.
In 2023, the Los Angeles Times wrote a feature on how fentanyl was ravaging Española, a community long damaged by addictive drugs. This Easter, Española’s sheriff was killed by a lethal combination of fentanyl and alcohol.
DEA Special Agent David Howell in a whistleblower role reported to the Department of Justice that he estimated that 1.8 million fentanyl pills were “walked” into the community in a single case. Another DEA supervisor, speaking anonymously, said “millions” of pills were released in undercover buys and never accounted for.
And former U.S. Attorney for New Mexico, Alex Uballez, speaking on the record to AP, said, “I don’t think I’d contest that drugs are ‘walked.’” Uballez left his post in February 2025. But the largest bust in U.S. history was celebrated by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi in May 2025: more than 3 million pills.
But Howell and a supervisor told AP that operation could have ended six months earlier; it was the same one where Howell witnessed the 1.8 million pills being walked into the streets. Looking at our overdose statistics, maybe a hundred or so New Mexicans could have been saved had the operation concluded in late 2024 with the 1.8 million pill drop.
Much of this took place under the previous administration. We can hope the current Department of Justice and DEA has stopped this practice of using New Mexicans as cannon fodder in the war on drugs.
One wonders how anyone could think this practice could be acceptable. Did the DEA just look at New Mexico and think, “Poor. Already full of addicts. Who will notice?” Law enforcement takes an oath to protect and serve. We trust our law enforcement officers to help us. This betrayal of trust puts up a barrier that makes cooperation in future operations difficult to envision.
The highest visibility counter-narcotics effort from this administration is probably the fast-boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific, which purportedly is stopping fentanyl and “narco-terrorists” from reaching American shores. What this effort is doing is using Hellfire missiles to vaporize specialized boats.
Because the boats are vaporized, no cargo is recovered. Because they are not coming from Mexico, the likely cargo is cocaine, and a small percentage of the cocaine. And the cartels are adapting. The cartels are using commercial shipping vessels, employing corrupt crew members to stash drugs in unlikely places onboard the ships, or divers to attach payloads to the hull.
Taking out a fast boat is probably running around $250,000 a mission, and we are at about 60 missions now. A $15 million price tag is budget dust compared with say, I don’t know, Epic Fury. But it’s not stopping drugs.
But at least it’s not killing Americans.
Merritt Hamilton Allen is a PR executive and former Navy officer. She appeared regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican for 36 years, she became an independent upon reading the 2024 Republican platform. She lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run one head of dog, and one of cat. She can be reached at merritt@merrittocracy.news.