Jorge, 39, prepares a dose of “black heroin” that has been adulterated with opioids in the so-called “Safe Room,” the first supervised drug consumption space in all of Latin America, located in the heart of Mexicali, where the overdose crisis has become commonplace. Baja California’s Ministry of Public Health (SEMFO) has confirmed a higher mortality rate from opioid overdoses, up to 20% among all bodies, in Mexicali—even higher than in Tijuana—making it one of the cities hardest hit by this epidemic in the country.
Injected drug use on the northern border is taking a huge toll on the capital of Baja California, Mexicali, where non-governmental organizations and civil associations have grown tired of sending warnings and have opted to mitigate the problem in their own ways, given the lack of an effective institutional response.
Testimonies gathered by this newspaper indicate that the support network is divided into two camps: those who can afford to pay for an annex—or care center, depending on the trained staff—to detox from powerful psychoactive substances, and those who choose to continue their dependence “safely,” seeking to avoid the risk of infection from sharing needles or suffering a fatal overdose.
Those who do not fall into these groups—“the zombies,” as the residents call them—find themselves wandering the desert streets overlooking the border wall built by former US President Donald Trump, exposed not only to contracting HIV and Hepatitis C infections from sharing needles, but also to severe pneumonia, skin infections, sepsis, and a silent death on the periphery of the health system.
Regardless of what the authorities may or may not accept, it’s now easier for the “cachanillas” to abandon censorship and taboos and find practical solutions, because, like life in the desert, the only option is to adapt. To resist is to survive, and adaptation is the only viable strategy in the face of chronic neglect.
