Lupe Salazar is a grandmother in Chimayó, northern New Mexico on a mission to disrupt the cycle of opioid addiction and the trauma caused by it in her rural community. The region has long been an epicenter of drug overdose deaths – long before the national opioid epidemic was declared a national emergency.

After her son began using heroin in jail when he was 18, Lupe realized the systems in place were doing a better job keeping him incarcerated than helping him access treatment for addiction. So, Lupe went back to college to learn for herself about addiction and how integrating holistic healing, like curanderismo, could help her community heal.

In this episode of Latino USA we follow Lupe’s mission to help heal a community fractured by generations of opioid use and overdose, dismantle the stigma shrouding addiction and treatment and reintegrate the with traditional and indigenous healing practices – all while trying to address her son’s ongoing opioid use and keep him alive.

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