The U.S. Justice Department is meeting with American Indian tribal leaders from an area of the country devastated by heroin and opioid addiction.
Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohris is scheduled Tuesday to talk with representatives and police chiefs from the eight northern New Mexico Native American Pueblos as part of a push to combat heroin-related deaths.
For years, the northern New Mexico city of Espanola has had one of the nation's highest heroin-related death rates.
A Nation Institute on Drug Abuse survey found that American Indian students' annual heroin and Oxycontin use was about two to three times higher than the national averages from 2009 to 2012.
The Justice Department meeting is part of the New Mexico Heroin and Opioid Prevention and Education Initiative.
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