Open Letter: Why I Helped Form a New Mexico ASAM Chapter

New Mexico has perennially ranked at the top or near the top nationally for both alcohol and drug related problems, including opiate overdose and DWI fatalities. Recent statistics reveal that New Mexico’s teens and adolescents use of illicit drugs is higher than the national average. Paradoxically, the state tends to rank near the bottom nationally with respect to treatment and access to treatment for substance use disorders which is due to a number of factors, including economic, geographic, and other provider specific issues such as not enough addiction specialists and the concentration of specialists in the larger cities.

Because of this data and complicating issues, my colleagues and I were quite surprised to find that there existed no New Mexico chapter of ASAM. We believed that a state chapter could provide an organized body of addiction medicine specialists that New Mexico residents could turn to and be an important a statewide resource for public policy, advocacy, and education. Our aims were to create an organization that both public and professionals could come to with questions about substance abuse and addiction treatment and prevention.

In July, ASAM’s Board approved the formation of the New Mexico Society of Addiction Medicine (NMSAM). One of the first projects we tackled to help establish NMSAM as a state leader and resource was the creation of a web-based statewide comprehensive directory of addiction services that will be aggressively promoted to all the major stakeholders in our state, including schools, courts and probation officers, healthcare providers, CYFD, health departments, policy makers, and of course, to the public.

The directory is already up and running and is called “The New Mexico Directory of Addiction Services” and is found at www.NMDAS.net. The directory also has corresponding Twitter (@nmdasNM) and Facebook pages. The purpose of the directory is to provide patients and their families an easily navigated directory to search and find treatment and other valuable resources for themselves or their loved ones that may be struggling with a substance use disorder or addiction. It is also hoped that this directory will serve as a valuable resource for the general medical community as well as the addiction/substance abuse treatment community to facilitate referrals and collaboration for treatment and for specialized services for substance abuse disorders.

Other immediate goals of our chapter will be to recruit more regular and associate members and to work with our local medical school and training program in establishing a fellowship in addiction medicine with the hope of increasing the number of addiction treatment providers in our state which desperately needs them.