Alcohol Abuse Drives High Death Rate in New Mexico
Alcohol is killing New Mexicans at a higher rate than anywhere else in the country — yet the state has largely neglected the growing crisis, reports New Mexico In Depth in a seven-part series.
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Alcohol is killing New Mexicans at a higher rate than anywhere else in the country — yet the state has largely neglected the growing crisis, reports New Mexico In Depth. A seven-part series by Ted Alcorn, a Center on Media, Crime and Justice Harry Frank Guggenheim Reporting Fellow, found that New Mexicans die of alcohol-related causes at nearly three times the national average, higher by far than any other state. In 2020, it killed more New Mexicans under 65 than COVID-19 did in the first year of the pandemic.
The series also found that alcohol is a major driver of violence. In 2020, the state’s health department attributed a total of 231 violent deaths to alcohol, outnumbering alcohol-involved traffic fatalities that year. Among the strategies discussed to curb the epidemic is raising alcohol taxes. “Back in the day when I got started on this, nobody thought tax mattered,” said Philip Cook, a professor emeritus of economics at Duke University whose research demonstrates the way governments tax alcohol also affects how people drink.
