The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) knowingly permitted hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to reach New Mexico communities over a two-year period, from 2023 to 2025, while federal agents pursued “larger drug-trafficking cases,” according to an Associated Press investigation. This deliberate strategy coincided with a 21% spike in overdose deaths in New Mexico last year, even as national overdose deaths fell by 14%.
New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham on Wednesday called for a criminal investigation into the DEA, stating that the agency's actions amounted to a “reckless and dangerous” gamble with public safety. The governor asserted that “the DEA knew people would die if these pills made it into New Mexico communities, and the agency let it happen anyway.”
The State's Calculation
The AP investigation, citing current and former DEA agents and government records, revealed that agents repeatedly allowed major fentanyl shipments to continue moving through the state rather than seizing them immediately. This approach was intended to build cases against higher-ranking traffickers. Alex Uballez, who served as U.S. attorney in New Mexico from May 2022 until February 2025, explained that drugs went unseized at times due to his office’s “limited resources” and his belief that “prosecuting larger organizations has a bigger impact than intercepting every suspected drug transaction.”
This strategy, which some agents believed may have violated U.S. Justice Department rules designed to safeguard the public, allowed a drug designated by the White House last year as a “weapon of mass destruction” to circulate freely. An internal report from 2023, cited in the AP investigation, detailed a delivery of 74,000 pills that the DEA surveilled but did not seize at a mobile home park in Albuquerque.
DEA spokesperson Amanda Wozniak defended the agency's actions, stating in an email that “the investigative decisions at issue were lawful, reasonable under the circumstances and consistent with Department guidance.” Wozniak further claimed that “Public descriptions suggesting that DEA knowingly permitted fentanyl to reach communities are false and fundamentally mischaracterize the facts.”
Human Cost of Policy
The human cost of this state-sanctioned flow of deadly narcotics is evident in the rising death toll. Michael Glownia, who lost his daughter to fentanyl in 2023 and founded a nonprofit organization to support families suffering similar losses, expressed profound distress. Glownia stated, “Knowing the Justice Department had guidelines to seize the opioids whenever practical — and the fact these were ignored — is truly heartbreaking.” Victims groups have also spoken out, highlighting the contradiction between the DEA's actions and its prominent “One Pill Can Kill” campaign, which warns that even a few milligrams of fentanyl can be fatal.
Governor Lujan Grisham emphasized that “New Mexican lives are not the federal government’s cost of doing business.” She pledged to “hold the federal government accountable for this disaster” and “explore every possible avenue of action against the federal government to right these wrongs.”
Managing the Contradiction
The governor's call for a criminal probe by the state’s attorney general, alongside her stated intention to pursue legal avenues against the federal government, represents an attempt to manage the contradictions inherent in the state's role. These efforts seek accountability within the existing legal and administrative frameworks, rather than questioning the fundamental priorities that lead state agencies to sacrifice public safety for “bigger impact” cases. DEA whistleblower David Howell, who filed a complaint drawing attention to the unseized fentanyl, spoke with congressional staffers on Wednesday. Empower Oversight, a whistleblower advocacy group representing Howell, has requested investigations from the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General. Sen. Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican, called Howell’s revelations “a scandal of the highest order” and announced plans to investigate the number of American lives lost due to the DEA’s inaction. These responses, while acknowledging a “scandal,” remain focused on internal reform and accountability within the state apparatus, leaving the underlying systemic logic unchallenged.