By james art 
LAREDO, Texas (KGNS) – KGNS spoke with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Roots Recovery Center about their role in reducing the number of opiate-related overdose deaths.
By the end of 2024 the city of Laredo saw a 50% drop in overdose deaths. Director of Detox at Roots Recovery Center, Viviana Martinez, has seen firsthand the faces of addiction and recovery.
“I was at the grocery store and this gentleman ran up to me and hugged me and I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ It was unexpected. It turned out it was a former patient and he told me he was doing well and that it was working,” Martinez said.
Roots Recovery Center is the only place in Laredo that medically helps people through the drug withdrawal process. Martinez added, “Without the center here, people have to travel at least 150 miles for services; which becomes very difficult for them because they don’t have the resources or the support to get to a detox facility.”
In its first year of operation, the center has seen 279 patients and connected many of them to long-term treatment or psychiatric services to address the root cause of their drug use.
Martinez mentioned, “The majority of our opiate population is using fentanyl, so most of them have only started using fentanyl in the last year or two. They have used substances all their lives, but in the last year or two they started using fentanyl. She attributes the easy access to fentanyl to its low cost and fast-acting high.
DEA Assistant Special Agent Robert Kennedy said the drugs are coming from across the border, which puts Laredo in a unique position.
Noting, “We have millions of trucks that pass through the city of Laredo and move across the United States every day. This is a phenomenal amount of movement, which means that the increase in drugs coming into the United States is dramatically increased.
However, fentanyl overdoses have decreased through a multi-agency task force. Drug dealers are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, with federal sentences sometimes ranging from 20-30 years.
Kennedy added: “We will pursue every corner to bring justice to every person in the world. Whoever we can identify is connected to these drugs and has killed people in the city of Laredo.
Thanks to efforts like these, in unison with social programs at the city level, more and more success stories have been created.
LPD said in the future they will use drones to quickly and safely deliver life-saving medication to overdose survivors.
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