Las Cruces City Council is hoping to team up with other community partners to help stop the growth of the drug “Spice” a synthetic drug.
Council heard from Ruth Rivas, a mother who founded the non-profit Spice is Not Nice in El Paso, after her son Adam, a member of the U.S. Navy died from a Spice overdose.
“I tell people when I found out that Adam had died,” Rivas said. “It was like somebody punched me three times. Because, first I had to deal with my son’s dead, second of all I had to deal with the fact that it was because of a drug, Third, Adam never used drugs, so how in the world could this happen. The Military, they drug test, why would I even suspect drugs could play a part in my son’s death. So, there was a lot that I had to deal with, but ultimately it came down to Spice.”
Even though the sale of Spice is illegal, it’s hard to prosecute because it’s labeled “not for human consumption”, and the chemical properties are frequently changed to avoid detection during testing. District Attorney Mark D’Antonio says many people also don’t know the dangers of the drug.
“The problem is education wise,” D’Antonio said. “People aren’t reporting it. They’re covering it up. When your child is affected by this there is an embarrassment, stigma. If parent’s who have children using spice would just tell us where they’re getting it from, we would make sure that we would go after the people peddling it.”
The city is now working to create an ordinance that would combine education initiative with civil penalties. Penalties would include larger fines, and the city pulling the shops business licenses. City Councilor Greg Smith says it’s important to attack the problem from multiple sides.
“I think the education goal although it’s going to take longer,” Smith says. “We often times want a quick result for things, and we find those quick results don’t actually accomplish as much as we want them too. And so the long term, more solid thing, is going to be the education piece, but it’s got to be really strong. Then for the short term, and because it is going to probably make us feel better, and help get the word out. Then that’s where the legislation, the ordinance will probably help in that way as well.”
Ruth Rivas says she has seen success through education both children and parents.
“We need to raise that perception of harm,” Rivas said. “Because if there is a low- perception then the use of that drug is going to go up. So, what I’m trying to do is change the perception of the community to truly see what this drug is all about. So, that they can make an educated choice of what they want to do.”
District Attorney Mark D’Antonio says in order to combat the problem; all of the community partners need to work together.
“It’s part of a combined effect,” D’Antonio said. “If you are in fact distributing spice, the DA’s office will prosecute you. But, the city has the unique power, if you’re distributing from a business, and your knowingly distributing a dangerous poison to our children and our homeless. Then the city is going to try to craft an ordinance that will prevent you from doing something by taking away your business license if you do so. So, we need to attack the people who are making the money, the profiteers who are benefitting from poisoning our children.”
The City hopes to bring the ordinance up for a vote in the next few months.
