LOS ANGELES — Every week, the waiting room at the Mexican General Consulate becomes Martha Hernandez’s classroom where she not only teaches how to save a life from an overdose, but also hears how the opioid epidemic affects Latino immigrants.

“One lady told me, ‘If I would have known two weeks ago, my son-in-law was home and took some fentanyl,’” said Hernandez. “When the paramedics arrived, it was too late. They said if we had the spray [Naloxone/Narcan] we could’ve saved him.”

Hernandez, who is a community public health worker for the LA County Department of Public Health, explains in her workshops that the risk of an overdose is much closer than one thinks.

“It’s not only for people that do drugs out on the street,” she said. “It’s also for people who accidentally overdose from chronic pain medication like Norco or Morphine.”

In 2022, LA County reported fentanyl became the most common drug in accidental overdoses. These deaths account for 59% of all drug overdose deaths.

From 2018 to 2022, Latino overdose deaths increased by more than 1,000%.

Hernandez says that since the start of these community workshops at several Latin American consulates, nearly 25,000 doses of Narcan have been distributed.

Tobias Morales Santiago has lived in Los Angeles for more than a decade and is originally from the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Morales Santiago says he came into the Mexican consulate for a passport renovation but left with vital, life-saving information.

“One never really knows in our day-to-day, when we will have to administer Narcan,” he said. “It can happen just about anywhere, at home, work, on the streets.”

Working with and educating immigrants like Morales Santiago is important for Hernandez, who says that in countries like Mexico, Narcan is quite inaccessible to the average person.

“I’ve heard about it and seen it [Narcan] but it is not the same to actually be taught how to use it,” said Morales Santiago. “Unfortunately, I see on the streets more people that could potentially need it, but many of us do not have the proper training to step in and help.”  

Naloxone, known as Narcan, which is used to reverse drug overdoses, is highly controlled in Mexico because it’s considered a psychoactive substance. This makes it expensive and hard to find, since a single dose cost about $500 Mexican pesos or about $25 a dose and it requires a doctor’s prescription.

Every week, Hernandez remains hopeful and continues her mission of informing immigrants and arming them with a life-saving tool, a tool that hopefully will save a life.

“It does not matter whether you’re White, you’re Asian, you’re Mexican, you’re Latino,” said Hernandez. “It impacts everyone.”