RIO RANCHO — In the heat of a Saturday afternoon in a New Mexico county experiencing a dramatic increase in drug overdose deaths just this year, grief and anger flowed.
The gathering at Rio Rancho’s Haynes Park included mothers who lost sons to fentanyl poisoning and those recovering from addiction, including an 18-year-old named Elijah who announced he was four months clean after having overdosed a dozen times on the drug and being revived.
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which has in the past helped sponsor the annual Walk for Lives event in cities nationwide, opted not to attend. That came after published reports in the Albuquerque Journal and The Associated Press revealed that beginning in 2023 the DEA intentionally allowed several million fentanyl pills to hit the New Mexico streets as they investigated drug trafficking organizations…