The El Paso Division

DEA El Paso Division

Last fully verified: July 24, 2026

The Drug Enforcement Administration’s El Paso Division serves the entire State of New Mexico and 17 counties of West Texas.

That jurisdiction must be stated carefully.

The division does not serve all of Texas. Most Texas territory falls under other DEA field divisions. Statewide Texas statistics can provide broad context, but they cannot honestly be labeled an El Paso Division measurement.

DEA’s current division page describes the region more narrowly as serving “New Mexico, El Paso, Alpine, and Midland Texas.” The official appointment announcement for Special Agent in Charge Omar Arellano provides the more complete description: all of New Mexico and 17 West Texas counties. DEA does not publish a current county-by-county list of those 17 Texas counties on the public pages reviewed for this publication.

Seeds of Vice will not manufacture that boundary.

The division’s headquarters is in El Paso. DEA currently publishes regional contact locations in Albuquerque and Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Alpine and Midland, Texas. A 2024 recruiting announcement also identified Roswell, New Mexico, as an El Paso Division office, although Roswell is absent from DEA’s current division page and current leadership biography.

The El Paso Division operates in a region shaped by immense distances, international-border traffic, rural communities, tribal lands, metropolitan healthcare systems, agricultural areas, oil-producing regions, and communities with limited access to specialist medicine.

It investigates transnational drug-trafficking organizations, illicit fentanyl distribution, money laundering, violent criminal networks, and other violations of federal law. It also administers and enforces the federal controlled-substance system governing lawful manufacturers, distributors, hospitals, pharmacies, clinics, practitioners, treatment programs, researchers, and other DEA registrants.

This page concerns that lawful system.

It explains who currently leads the division, where its offices are publicly identified, which diversion personnel are known, how federal authority overlaps with Texas and New Mexico law, what actual diversion cases look like, and what the historical prescribing record can—and cannot—prove about lawful medicine in the region.

The Name Matters

The official regional organization is the DEA El Paso Division.

It is not formally called the “El Paso Diversion Division.”

The El Paso Division is a domestic field division responsible for multiple enforcement missions. Pharmaceutical diversion control is one part of a much larger regional command.

The national Diversion Control Division is a separate operational component within DEA headquarters. It administers national programs involving controlled-substance registration, regulations, production quotas, imports and exports, listed chemicals, distribution monitoring, policy, and major diversion investigations.

The two organizations are connected, but they are not interchangeable.

National DEA components establish and administer much of the federal controlled-substance framework. El Paso Division personnel implement and enforce portions of that framework in New Mexico and West Texas.

The El Paso Division does not independently:

• Enact the Controlled Substances Act;
• Establish national manufacturing quotas;
• Write national DEA regulations;
• Create CDC prescribing recommendations;
• Issue Texas or New Mexico medical licenses;
• Establish every hospital, pharmacy, or insurance policy affecting pain treatment;
• Determine the national medical standard of care.

Its personnel can, however:

• Inspect DEA registrants;
• Review controlled-substance records;
• Audit inventories;
• Investigate thefts and significant losses;
• Investigate suspected unlawful prescribing or dispensing;
• Work with state licensing and law-enforcement authorities;
• Use administrative and judicial process;
• Execute warrants when legally authorized;
• Support registration proceedings;
• Refer civil and criminal matters for prosecution.

National policy should not be attributed solely to one regional field division.

A field division should also not be treated as a passive observer when its personnel exercise federal authority over the lawful medical channel.

Who This Division Serves

New Mexico

The El Paso Division serves all of New Mexico.

DEA currently publishes New Mexico contact locations in:

• Albuquerque;
• Las Cruces.

DEA also officially identified Roswell as an El Paso Division office in a February 2024 recruitment announcement. That announcement said applicants could work in “one of five local offices” but then named six locations: El Paso, Midland, Alpine, Las Cruces, Roswell, and Albuquerque.

Roswell is not currently listed on the main division page or Omar Arellano’s current biography.

The public record therefore supports three conclusions:

First, DEA officially treated Roswell as an El Paso Division office in 2024.

Second, DEA’s current public contact page does not list it.

Third, the available sources do not establish whether the Roswell location closed, changed status, was consolidated into another office, or simply disappeared from the public listing.

This page will not choose among those possibilities without evidence.

The New Mexico jurisdiction includes Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Las Cruces, Farmington, Gallup, Roswell, Carlsbad, Hobbs, tribal communities, border communities, mountain regions, and broad areas where the nearest major hospital or specialist may be far away.

A statewide dispensing rate corresponds geographically to the division’s complete New Mexico territory.

It still does not describe every New Mexico community equally.

West Texas

The El Paso Division serves 17 West Texas counties.

DEA currently identifies operational locations in:

• El Paso;
• Alpine;
• Midland.

El Paso is the regional headquarters and the division’s largest publicly identified Texas operation.

Alpine sits within the vast Big Bend region.

Midland serves part of the Permian Basin and surrounding West Texas territory.

The public sources reviewed for this page do not provide an authoritative current list of all 17 counties.

Statewide Texas prescribing statistics therefore include large populations and medical systems outside the division. Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, East Texas, the Rio Grande Valley, and most other Texas regions are not all administered by the El Paso Division.

Any statewide Texas rate presented here is labeled statewide context.

It is not labeled an El Paso Division rate.

A Domestic Division at an International Border

El Paso and Ciudad Juárez form a closely connected international metropolitan region, but DEA’s domestic El Paso Division and DEA’s foreign offices should not be conflated.

Omar Arellano previously served as Resident Agent in Charge of DEA’s Ciudad Juárez office and as an agent in Mexico City. A July 2026 federal case involving the Barrio Azteca organization was investigated by both DEA El Paso and DEA Juárez, with each office separately identified in the official record.

That distinction is important.

The domestic El Paso Division administers federal authority within its stated United States jurisdiction.

DEA Juárez performs foreign-office functions in Mexico.

Geographic proximity and cooperation do not merge the two organizations into a single office or give the domestic division ordinary jurisdiction over medical practice in Mexico.

Headquarters

The El Paso Division headquarters is publicly listed at:

DEA El Paso Division
660 Mesa Hills Drive
Suite 2000
El Paso, Texas 79912

Main telephone: (915) 832-6000.

The headquarters serves as the principal public contact and coordinates divisional operations across New Mexico and West Texas.

Current Leadership

Omar Arellano

Special Agent in Charge

DEA’s current division page and leadership biography identify Omar Arellano as the permanent Special Agent in Charge of the El Paso Division. He assumed the position in March 2025 and became the first native El Pasoan to lead the division. DEA described him as the division’s eleventh Special Agent in Charge.

Arellano began his DEA career in the El Paso Division in 2003.

His subsequent assignments included:

• Agent in DEA’s Mexico City Country Office;
• Resident Agent in Charge of the Ciudad Juárez Resident Office;
• Supervisory Special Agent in the Dallas Division;
• Executive Assistant to the Director of the El Paso Intelligence Center;
• Work within DEA headquarters’ Financial Investigations Section;
• Assistant Special Agent in Charge in Bogotá, Colombia;
• Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Andean Division;
• Chief of Foreign Operations.

DEA states that, as Chief of Foreign Operations, Arellano oversaw international enforcement efforts involving 91 foreign offices in 68 countries. His biography also identifies experience directing complex international money-laundering investigations and working with foreign governments against Mexican and Colombian criminal organizations.

Arellano holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Texas at El Paso.

His official biography documents extensive experience in international enforcement, organizational leadership, money-laundering investigations, border operations, and foreign liaison work.

It does not identify him as a physician, pharmacist, epidemiologist, pain specialist, or clinical researcher.

That distinction does not diminish his legal authority.

It identifies the professional background from which the division is led.

A July 2026 Leadership Qualification

The permanent leadership record is accompanied by a current operational qualification.

DEA’s live leadership page still identifies Omar Arellano as Special Agent in Charge. However, official releases dated July 2 and July 22, 2026, identified Mark Putnam as Acting Special Agent in Charge of the El Paso Division.

DEA has not publicly announced in the reviewed sources that Arellano permanently left the position or that Putnam received a permanent appointment.

The most accurate current description is therefore:

Omar Arellano remains DEA’s publicly listed permanent Special Agent in Charge. Mark Putnam was serving in an acting capacity for at least part of July 2026.

An acting assignment can result from temporary absence, leave, travel, reassignment, vacancy, or another internal circumstance. The public record does not establish which explanation applies here.

Seeds of Vice will not invent one.

The Public Office Record Is Inconsistent

DEA’s current division page and current SAC biography identify five principal operating locations:

• El Paso;
• Alpine;
• Midland;
• Albuquerque;
• Las Cruces.

The February 2024 recruitment announcement identified those five locations plus Roswell.

It also referred to “five local offices” while naming six.

This leaves two separate official-record problems:

• An office appears in the 2024 record but not in the current record;
• The 2024 record’s stated number of offices does not equal the number it names.

This page preserves the discrepancy rather than silently removing Roswell or treating it as unquestionably current.

A public agency can legitimately change its office structure.

The agency should then update the public record clearly enough that a citizen can determine what changed.

Publicly Identified Personnel

DEA does not publish a complete roster of El Paso Division special agents, diversion investigators, intelligence analysts, task-force officers, supervisors, auditors, attorneys, or administrative employees.

Seeds of Vice will not manufacture one from:

• Social-media profiles;
• Commercial people-search services;
• Old press releases;
• Former assignments;
• Undated organizational charts;
• Unsupported directories.

The following people are included because DEA currently identifies them in official public-facing roles.

Carlos A. Briano

Media Inquiries

DEA lists Carlos A. Briano as the El Paso Division’s media contact.

Telephone: (571) 324-7093
Email: carlos.a.briano@dea.gov.

Elizabeth Borruel

Recruitment

DEA identifies Elizabeth Borruel as the division’s recruitment contact.

Telephone: (915) 832-6000
Email: ElPasoSpecialAgentRecruiter@dea.gov.

Michelle Rincon

Community Outreach

DEA identifies Michelle Rincon as the El Paso Division’s community-outreach contact.

Telephone: (915) 479-2540
Email: Michelle.Rincon@dea.gov.

Community outreach is distinct from diversion investigation. Public education, prevention programming, family engagement, and community coordination should not be confused with the administration of registrations or command of criminal investigations.

Michael Jones

El Paso Diversion Program Manager

A May 2026 DEA release publicly identified Michael Jones as the El Paso Diversion Program Manager.

The title establishes a public connection to the division’s diversion program.

It does not disclose every component under his supervision, the complete internal chain of command, or the identities of all diversion personnel.

Brisza Jimenez

Registration Program Specialist

The same May 2026 official record identified Brisza Jimenez as a Registration Program Specialist.

Registration specialists perform public-facing and administrative work connected to DEA’s registration system. The title should not be interpreted as evidence that the individual personally directs criminal investigations.

Matthew Taylor

Diversion Outreach Specialist

DEA publicly identified Matthew Taylor as a Diversion Outreach Specialist in May 2026.

Diversion outreach can involve communication with registrants, professional groups, institutions, and communities concerning controlled-substance responsibilities, disposal, registration, and prevention.

It is related to the diversion program but distinguishable from criminal casework.

A Public but Incomplete Record

The named individuals above do not constitute a complete El Paso Division diversion roster.

DEA does not currently publish every:

• Diversion investigator;
• Group supervisor;
• Tactical Diversion Squad member;
• Registration specialist;
• Program analyst;
• Assistant Special Agent in Charge;
• Resident-office supervisor;
• State or local task-force participant.

An unpublished name should remain unpublished unless a reliable official record supports its inclusion.

Public Contact Locations

El Paso Headquarters

El Paso
(915) 832-6000

New Mexico

Albuquerque
(505) 452-4500

Las Cruces
(575) 526-0700

West Texas

Alpine
(432) 837-6000

Midland
(432) 686-4085.

DEA’s public page includes a legend for division, district, resident, and post-of-duty offices, but the text does not unambiguously assign each city a classification.

Accordingly, this page calls them publicly listed contact locations unless a separate official record supplies the organizational status.

A telephone listing does not establish:

• Staffing levels;
• Internal reporting relationships;
• Exact geographical boundaries;
• Whether diversion investigators are permanently assigned;
• Whether the location is a district office, resident office, post of duty, or another organizational unit.

Roswell

Roswell was officially identified as an El Paso Division office in February 2024.

It is not presently listed on DEA’s principal division page.

No direct current telephone number is published there.

The Albuquerque or El Paso numbers are therefore the most defensible published contacts for questions about Roswell-area DEA operations.

The El Paso Intelligence Center

The El Paso Intelligence Center, commonly called EPIC, is an important DEA-led institution located in El Paso.

It is not the same organization as the El Paso Division.

EPIC was established in 1974 to provide tactical intelligence to federal, state, and local law-enforcement agencies. DEA states that it has expanded into a multiagency center containing representatives of 21 participating agencies, with particular emphasis on threats involving the Southwest border.

EPIC supports law enforcement through tactical, operational, and strategic intelligence.

Its location and DEA leadership create an obvious connection to El Paso, but EPIC should not be described as the regional diversion office.

It is a national intelligence institution.

The El Paso Division is a regional field command.

The Diversion Control Division is a national operational component governing the lawful controlled-substance channel.

All three are connected to DEA.

They perform different functions.

Operation Engage Albuquerque

DEA’s current El Paso Division page identifies Albuquerque as an Operation Engage community.

DEA describes Operation Engage Albuquerque as a program intended to address local drug threats, involve community leaders, provide prevention resources, support coalition activity, and organize activities including prescription-drug take-back events.

Operation Engage is principally a community-enforcement and prevention initiative.

It should not be confused with the diversion-registration system or treated as proof that every person receiving a prescription is part of the identified drug threat.

Prescription Drug Take Back

On April 25, 2026, DEA and partner agencies collected 4,796 pounds of unused medication across West Texas and New Mexico during the 30th National Prescription Drug Take Back Day.

Drug-disposal programs serve a legitimate purpose.

Unused controlled substances can remain in homes after treatment changes, recovery, surgery, death, or prescription expiration. Secure disposal can reduce accidental ingestion, theft, unauthorized sharing, and nonmedical use.

The existence of unused medication does not establish that the original prescription was improper.

A patient can lawfully and appropriately receive medicine, use only the amount medically needed, and later dispose of the remainder.

Disposal is evidence of responsible control when it returns medication safely out of circulation.

Diversion-Control Infrastructure

DEA’s current Tactical Diversion Squad directory identifies an El Paso Tactical Diversion Squad.

For New Mexico inquiries, the directory routes the public through the DEA El Paso office rather than publishing a separate current city-based New Mexico squad entry.

A Tactical Diversion Squad is not merely an educational or administrative unit.

DEA describes these squads as multiagency enforcement groups combining federal, state, and local personnel to investigate organizations or individuals suspected of violating the Controlled Substances Act or related laws involving pharmaceutical controlled substances and listed chemicals.

DEA states that Tactical Diversion Squads can:

• Combine information and legal authority across agencies;
• Coordinate cases crossing jurisdictional boundaries;
• Support traditional diversion groups;
• Conduct physical surveillance;
• Conduct controlled purchases of evidence;
• Recruit and manage confidential sources;
• Pay informants;
• Make arrests;
• Execute search warrants;
• Seize evidence.

This structure demonstrates that diversion control can move along a continuum.

A matter may begin with:

• A registration issue;
• A compliance inspection;
• A prescription complaint;
• An inventory discrepancy;
• A theft or significant-loss report;
• An unusual dispensing pattern;
• A suspicious-order report;
• Information from a patient, employee, pharmacist, hospital, licensing board, or law-enforcement agency.

If investigators believe the evidence supports criminal conduct, a regulatory matter can develop into a conventional criminal investigation involving surveillance, informants, warrants, arrest, and prosecution.

That does not mean every inspection becomes a criminal case.

It means the system possesses both regulatory and criminal enforcement capacity.

Traditional Diversion Work

Diversion investigators are regulatory specialists.

Their responsibilities can involve:

• DEA registration;
• Compliance inspections;
• Controlled-substance inventories;
• Ordering and distribution records;
• Theft and loss reporting;
• Prescription records;
• Security requirements;
• Suspicious-order monitoring;
• Administrative cases;
• Interviews with registrants and employees;
• Coordination with state licensing authorities.

Tactical Diversion Squads add conventional law-enforcement capabilities to that regulatory framework.

The coexistence of those two models reflects the unusual nature of diversion control.

It governs a lawful medical and commercial system, but suspected violations may result in:

• Corrective education;
• Administrative restrictions;
• Civil penalties;
• Registration surrender;
• Professional discipline;
• Search warrants;
• Arrests;
• Criminal prosecution.

A physician, dentist, hospital, pharmacy, treatment program, distributor, or employee may therefore encounter DEA through very different legal pathways.

The Official Mission

DEA’s Diversion Control Division states that its mission is to prevent, detect, and investigate the diversion of controlled pharmaceuticals and listed chemicals from legitimate sources while ensuring an adequate and uninterrupted supply for legitimate medical, commercial, and scientific needs.

That is a dual obligation.

Prevent Diversion

DEA is responsible for protecting the lawful controlled-substance channel from conduct such as:

• Theft;
• Fraud;
• Forgery;
• Record falsification;
• Employee diversion;
• Unlawful prescribing;
• Unlawful dispensing;
• Improper distribution;
• Security failures;
• Suspicious ordering;
• Other transfers from lawful possession into unlawful use.

Preserve Legitimate Supply

DEA also accepts responsibility for ensuring that controlled substances remain available for legitimate purposes, including:

• Surgery;
• Emergency medicine;
• Cancer treatment;
• Palliative and end-of-life care;
• Treatment of acute and chronic pain;
• Treatment of substance-use disorders;
• Veterinary medicine;
• Scientific research;
• Pharmaceutical manufacturing;
• Other lawful commercial uses.

DEA’s current practitioner manual expressly describes its responsibility as twofold: preventing diversion and abuse while ensuring an adequate and uninterrupted supply for legitimate medical, scientific, and research needs.

The legitimate-supply obligation is not decorative language.

It is part of the agency’s stated mission.

A complete evaluation of diversion control must therefore ask not only what was seized, stopped, surrendered, revoked, or prosecuted.

It must also ask whether legitimate patients, hospitals, pharmacies, practitioners, researchers, and treatment programs could obtain the medicine they lawfully required.

The Closed System of Distribution

Federal controlled-substance law operates through what DEA calls a closed system of distribution.

Businesses that import, export, manufacture, or distribute controlled substances generally must register with DEA. Health professionals authorized to prescribe, administer, or dispense them, together with pharmacies and other lawful handlers, also operate inside the registration system.

Registrants must comply with applicable requirements concerning:

• Security;
• Inventories;
• Ordering;
• Records;
• Prescribing;
• Dispensing;
• Theft and loss reporting;
• Suspicious orders;
• Transfers;
• Disposal;
• Imports and exports.

DEA registration is not ceremonial.

For many practitioners and businesses, it is the federal permission required to participate in the controlled-substance channel.

A physician or dentist may possess a state professional license but still require DEA registration to prescribe federally controlled substances.

A pharmacy may possess state authority but still require federal registration to handle them.

A hospital depends upon registered suppliers, pharmacies, and practitioners.

A patient experiences the closed system through every authorized participant standing between pharmaceutical manufacture and medical use.

The Federal and State Layers

Controlled-substance practice in New Mexico and West Texas is governed through overlapping institutions.

A practitioner may require:

• A professional license;
• State controlled-substance authority;
• Federal DEA registration;
• Compliance with state prescribing law;
• Compliance with federal prescribing law;
• Prescription-monitoring participation;
• Hospital or health-system credentials;
• Pharmacy acceptance;
• Insurance authorization;
• Compliance with professional-board standards.

Those requirements come from different institutions.

They should not all be attributed to DEA.

They should also not be treated as unrelated when their combined operation determines whether a patient receives medicine.

Texas Prescription Monitoring Program

The Texas Prescription Monitoring Program is administered by the Texas State Board of Pharmacy, not DEA.

The program collects information involving Schedule II through Schedule V controlled substances. Since March 1, 2020, Texas has generally required prescribers and pharmacists, other than veterinarians, to review a patient’s PMP history before prescribing or dispensing opioids, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, or carisoprodol, subject to applicable exceptions.

The Texas PMP can affect clinical and pharmacy decisions before a prescription is issued or filled.

It remains a state system.

DEA may obtain and use relevant information through lawful investigative processes, but the state board and federal agency are institutionally distinct.

New Mexico Controlled-Substance Registration

New Mexico maintains a state controlled-substance registration system.

The New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department states that the state registration must be obtained before DEA will issue a corresponding federal controlled-substance registration.

This illustrates the layered nature of permission.

A New Mexico practitioner’s ability to prescribe controlled substances can depend on:

1. Holding the appropriate professional license;
2. Holding New Mexico controlled-substance authority;
3. Holding federal DEA registration;
4. Maintaining required Prescription Monitoring Program participation.

A failure at one layer can affect the practitioner’s authority at another.

New Mexico Prescription Monitoring Program

New Mexico’s Prescription Monitoring Program collects information involving Schedule II through Schedule V controlled substances and designated drugs of concern. Current New Mexico rules include gabapentin as a drug of concern subject to monitoring requirements.

Practitioners obtaining New Mexico and federal controlled-substance registrations must also register for a PMP account, subject to applicable rules and exemptions. New Mexico renewal materials state that controlled-substance registration renewals generally will not be issued until PMP registration is verified as current.

The New Mexico Board of Pharmacy administers and enforces state pharmacy and controlled-substance law and investigates matters including controlled-substance thefts and dispensing complaints.

The New Mexico PMP is not a DEA database.

It is a state-administered information system operating alongside federal registration and enforcement authority.

What the El Paso Division Can Do

Depending on the evidence and applicable legal process, El Paso Division personnel can:

• Conduct regulatory inspections;
• Review controlled-substance records;
• Audit inventories;
• Examine ordering and distribution patterns;
• Investigate thefts and significant losses;
• Interview registrants and employees;
• Investigate prescribing and dispensing;
• Coordinate with state professional boards;
• Work with federal, tribal, state, and local law enforcement;
• Use subpoenas and other lawful compulsory process;
• Conduct surveillance;
• Use confidential sources;
• Execute warrants;
• Seize evidence;
• Make arrests;
• Seek administrative action against a DEA registration;
• Refer civil or criminal matters to prosecutors.

The available authority depends upon the type of investigation, the legal process being used, and the personnel involved.

What the El Paso Division Does Not Do

The El Paso Division does not ordinarily examine a pain patient, diagnose the cause of suffering, perform surgery, observe day-to-day functional improvement, evaluate every treatment alternative, or assume the treating clinician’s continuing duty of care.

DEA does not issue Texas or New Mexico medical licenses.

It does not make every hospital credentialing decision.

It does not control every insurance authorization.

It does not make every pharmacy-level dispensing decision.

It does not write every treatment contract or health-system tapering policy.

The El Paso Division therefore does not bear sole responsibility for every refused prescription, involuntary taper, pharmacy denial, delayed postoperative medication, or person unable to locate pain treatment in New Mexico or West Texas.

Prescribers, pharmacists, insurers, health systems, corporate pharmacies, licensing boards, legislatures, professional organizations, federal agencies, and individual clinical decisions can all affect access.

DEA nevertheless bears a distinct federal responsibility.

It controls access to the federal registration system and possesses enforcement authority capable of influencing behavior far beyond the person or organization directly investigated.

That influence should not be exaggerated into sole causation.

It should not be minimized into irrelevance.

How Diversion Control Works in Practice

The clearest way to understand diversion control is to examine actual cases.

The following matters demonstrate several different legal pathways:

• A court judgment after litigation;
• A civil settlement containing unproven allegations;
• A physician’s guilty plea;
• A pharmacy recordkeeping settlement.

Those legal postures must remain separate.

An allegation is not a conviction.

A settlement is not automatically an admission of liability.

A guilty plea establishes admitted criminal conduct.

A court judgment establishes responsibility to the extent stated by the court.

William C. Gardner

Former Albuquerque Dentist

On July 2, 2026, DEA announced that a federal court had entered a $320,000 judgment against former Albuquerque dentist William C. Gardner.

The government alleged that Gardner continued issuing controlled-substance prescriptions after his New Mexico dental license had been revoked and his state controlled-substance registration had expired. Because valid state authority is a prerequisite to federal practitioner status, the government contended that he no longer legally qualified to issue the prescriptions under federal law.

The investigation identified 94 allegedly unauthorized prescriptions, most involving Schedule II narcotics.

The court ultimately found Gardner responsible for 80 unlawful prescriptions and imposed a $4,000 civil penalty for each violation.

This legal posture is stronger than an unresolved allegation or negotiated settlement.

A federal court entered judgment after evaluating the evidence.

The case illustrates the connection between state and federal permission.

A DEA registration number does not independently preserve prescribing authority after the underlying state professional and controlled-substance authority has ceased to exist.

The case also demonstrates a legitimate diversion-control question:

Did the person issuing the prescription possess legal authority to do so at the time it was issued?

That question is different from whether an authorized physician made a difficult or unconventional clinical decision.

Dr. Brian August

El Paso Physician

In January 2026, El Paso physician Brian August entered a $200,000 civil settlement resolving federal and state allegations involving controlled-substance prescriptions and healthcare reimbursement.

The allegations concerned 255 prescriptions issued to 15 individuals between December 23, 2017, and May 22, 2021.

The substances identified by the government included Schedule II medications such as:

• Morphine;
• Fentanyl;
• Hydrocodone;
• Hydromorphone;
• Extended-release oxycodone;
• Tapentadol;
• Oxymorphone.

The government also identified Schedule IV substances including carisoprodol, zolpidem, clonazepam, alprazolam, and tramadol.

The government alleged that August failed to meet Texas requirements governing pain or chronic-pain treatment and did not adequately establish legitimate medical purpose, medical necessity, or issuance in the usual course of professional practice.

The settlement included restitution connected to Medicare Part D and Texas Medicaid. August had surrendered his DEA registration, agreed not to seek another, and surrendered his Texas medical license as a condition of the resolution.

The official release expressly states that the resolved claims were allegations and that there had been no determination of liability.

That sentence is not a technicality.

It defines the legal status of the case.

The settlement should not be described as a criminal conviction or proof that every government allegation was established in court.

Mark Beale

Las Cruces Psychiatrist

In March 2022, Las Cruces psychiatrist Mark Beale pleaded guilty to unlawfully dispensing and distributing a Schedule II controlled substance.

According to his plea agreement and the official case record, Beale admitted issuing prescriptions outside the usual course of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose.

He acknowledged conducting cursory examinations, failing to document relevant medical history and prescriptions adequately, failing to perform sufficient clinical monitoring, and continuing to prescribe opioids despite an opioid-abuse diagnosis without properly treating or referring the patient.

He also acknowledged chronically prescribing opioids and benzodiazepines in a manner that created an unacceptable risk of addiction, diversion, or overdose.

The DEA Tactical Diversion Squad investigated the case with the Doña Ana County Metro Narcotics Task Force, Las Cruces Police Department, and El Paso Police Department.

Because Beale pleaded guilty, the admitted conduct is not merely an unresolved allegation.

The case represents the criminal side of diversion control.

It also demonstrates why case-specific evidence matters.

A guilty plea based on inadequate evaluations, missing documentation, absent monitoring, known abuse, and prescribing outside professional practice is not interchangeable with a physician carefully treating a documented pain condition.

Joe’s Pharmacy

Peralta, New Mexico

In July 2022, Joe’s Pharmacy of Peralta agreed to pay $50,000 in civil penalties to resolve Controlled Substances Act claims arising from DEA inspections.

The government stated that the pharmacy failed to account for 24,422 doses of controlled substances, most of which were opioid analgesics.

The inspections also reportedly identified:

• 112 additional recordkeeping violations;
• Four dispensing violations;
• 1,231 additional controlled-substance doses unaccounted for during the reverse-distribution process;
• 15 doses of listed chemicals unaccounted for.

This was a civil settlement rather than a criminal conviction.

The case nevertheless illustrates the importance of inventory accountability.

When a pharmacy’s records cannot explain tens of thousands of controlled doses, investigators cannot readily determine whether the discrepancy resulted from theft, record failure, dispensing errors, disposal problems, or another cause.

Accurate records protect the public.

They also protect registrants from accusations that cannot be resolved because their own documentation is incomplete.

What These Cases Establish

The official record establishes that diversion and controlled-substance violations can occur through different mechanisms.

They can involve:

• Prescribing without valid state authority;
• Issuing prescriptions outside professional practice;
• Inadequate medical documentation;
• Failure to monitor a patient;
• Missing pharmacy inventory;
• Deficient records;
• Failure to maintain effective controls;
• Improper billing connected to allegedly invalid prescriptions.

Those are legitimate subjects of investigation.

The cases do not establish that:

• Every high-dose prescription is unlawful;
• Every long-term pain treatment lacks a medical purpose;
• Every unusual medication combination is criminal;
• Every physically dependent patient has been improperly treated;
• Every practitioner who disagrees with a population-level recommendation is committing diversion;
• Every patient receiving controlled medicine is a likely source of crime.

Each case must turn on its own evidence.

Administrative, Civil, and Criminal Paths

Diversion matters do not all follow the same legal path.

A matter may result in:

• Education or corrective action;
• A memorandum of agreement;
• Civil monetary penalties;
• A consent decree;
• A court judgment;
• Voluntary surrender of registration;
• An administrative order to show cause;
• Registration suspension or revocation;
• State professional discipline;
• Criminal charges;
• A guilty plea;
• Trial and conviction;
• No action if the evidence is insufficient.

These outcomes carry different meanings.

A civil settlement does not automatically establish criminal guilt.

An indictment is an accusation.

A guilty plea or conviction establishes responsibility for the admitted or proven offenses.

A judicial civil judgment establishes the violations found under the applicable burden and proceedings.

Responsible publication must preserve those distinctions.

The Necessary Distinction

The following circumstances are not equivalent:

• A dentist prescribing without a valid license;
• A pharmacy unable to account for thousands of doses;
• A physician prescribing without adequate examination or legitimate medical purpose;
• A forged prescription;
• A falsified inventory;
• A doctor treating severe chronic pain;
• A surgeon treating acute postoperative pain;
• A palliative-care physician treating a dying patient;
• A pharmacist resolving an unusual but lawful prescription;
• A patient physically dependent after long-term authorized treatment;
• A person selling medication illegally.

The controlled-substance framework exists in part to distinguish lawful possession, prescribing, dispensing, and use from unlawful conduct.

When diversion control preserves that distinction, it protects the lawful medical channel.

When suspicion becomes generalized, the lawful channel itself can become inaccessible.

How Enforcement Pressure Travels

Formal cases are only the most visible part of the system.

Federal authority can affect conduct before an agent files a charge or administrative action.

A practitioner knows DEA registration may be essential to practice.

A pharmacy knows its records and dispensing decisions may be reviewed.

A hospital knows that missing medication can trigger investigation.

A treatment facility knows that practitioner authority, inventories, and administration records are regulated.

A distributor knows suspicious orders must be identified and reported.

Those realities produce necessary safeguards.

They can also produce defensive behavior broader than federal law requires.

A health system may impose an inflexible dosage ceiling.

A pharmacy may decline a lawful prescription because it appears burdensome or risky.

A practitioner may stop accepting pain patients because controlled-substance care appears professionally dangerous.

A clinic may require drug testing, pill counts, treatment contracts, mandatory procedures, one-pharmacy rules, or discharge for conduct not itself proven unlawful.

An insurer may convert a clinical recommendation into a rigid payment rule.

DEA does not necessarily direct each of those decisions.

The institutions nevertheless operate in a regulatory environment partly shaped by federal registration and enforcement authority.

A rigorous analysis must distinguish among:

• Direct DEA action;
• Texas or New Mexico law;
• Professional-board requirements;
• Corporate pharmacy policy;
• Hospital risk management;
• Insurance restrictions;
• Clinical judgment;
• Anticipatory compliance;
• Personal fear or prejudice.

Without those distinctions, one institution is blamed for everything while every institution avoids responsibility for its own decisions.

Geography and Access

The El Paso Division’s geography makes access particularly important.

New Mexico and West Texas contain large areas where communities are separated by long travel distances. In a metropolitan region, the loss of one practitioner or pharmacy may leave alternatives.

In a geographically isolated community, the loss of one registrant can eliminate the only practical source of treatment.

The public record reviewed for this page does not quantify how often that occurs.

It establishes a reason the division should measure it.

Registration and enforcement decisions do not occur in a geographical vacuum.

The practical consequence of losing a controlled-substance provider depends partly on whether another qualified provider exists within a reasonable distance.

How This Affects Pain Patients and Lawful Medicine

Diversion control can protect patients.

It protects them when:

• Stolen medication is recovered;
• Tampered containers are discovered;
• Fraudulent prescriptions are stopped;
• Practitioners prescribing without authority are identified;
• Institutional inventories become accurate;
• Controlled substances remain traceable;
• People using patients as fronts are removed from the lawful channel.

Control can also affect patients through the reactions of lawful institutions.

Patients may encounter:

• Difficulty finding a practitioner willing to treat pain;
• Difficulty locating a pharmacy able or willing to fill a prescription;
• Involuntary dosage reductions;
• Abrupt discontinuation;
• Delayed postoperative medication;
• Restrictive treatment contracts;
• Repeated drug testing;
• Mandatory pill counts;
• One-pharmacy requirements;
• Refusal because of cannabis use;
• Mandatory procedures as a condition of medication;
• Discharge after disagreement;
• Insurance denials;
• Pharmacy-stock limitations;
• Treatment determined by a numerical threshold rather than individual circumstances.

No single one of those outcomes proves misconduct by the El Paso Division.

They remain relevant to DEA’s mission because the agency has expressly accepted responsibility for preserving an adequate and uninterrupted supply for legitimate medical needs.

A control system cannot evaluate itself solely by counting what it prevented.

It must also examine what lawful care remained possible.

CDC’s Current Clinical Position

CDC’s 2022 opioid-prescribing guideline is intended to support individualized, patient-centered clinical decision-making.

CDC states that the guideline is not:

• A replacement for clinical judgment;
• An inflexible standard of care;
• A law or regulation;
• A justification for rapid tapering;
• A justification for abrupt discontinuation.

CDC advises that, unless a life-threatening condition is present, opioid therapy should not be stopped abruptly and higher dosages should not be rapidly reduced.

CDC separately tells healthcare administrators not to impose rigid dosage thresholds, not to penalize clinicians for accepting patients already receiving opioids, and not to create incentives for rapid tapering.

The guideline also does not apply to pain treatment associated with sickle-cell disease, cancer, palliative care, or end-of-life care.

These limitations matter because recommendations can change character as they pass through institutions.

A clinical guidepost can become a corporate ceiling.

A population-level risk association can become an individual presumption.

A recommendation to proceed carefully can become a demand to end treatment.

When that occurs, the resulting policy should be judged on its own terms rather than defended solely by invoking CDC.

Prescribing and Dose-Decline Context

Why There Is No Honest 1984-to-Present Line

No single official dataset measures opioid prescribing in New Mexico and West Texas continuously from 1984 through 2026 using one stable definition.

The historical record changes:

• Geography;
• Population;
• Sampling method;
• Data source;
• Drug category;
• Prescriber setting;
• Pharmacy setting;
• Unit of measurement.

Different records measure:

• Drug mentions during physician visits;
• Numbers of prescriptions;
• Prescriptions per 100 residents;
• Morphine milligram equivalents;
• Average daily dosage;
• High-dose prescriptions;
• Long-acting or extended-release prescriptions;
• Days supplied;
• Medicare claims;
• Medicaid claims;
• Particular patient populations.

Those measures cannot be fused into one uninterrupted line without misleading the reader.

The responsible method is to preserve each measure under its original definition and disclose every gap.

1984: Historical Analgesic Utilization

On March 14, 1984, the National Center for Health Statistics published Utilization of Analgesic Drugs in Office-Based Ambulatory Care: National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, 1980–81.

The study measured analgesic drugs ordered or provided during office visits.

It was not a New Mexico or West Texas retail-pharmacy study.

It did not use prescriptions per 100 residents.

It excluded telephone-only prescribing and did not attempt to measure whether patients ultimately took the medication.

The report estimated 116.6 million analgesic mentions during the two-year national survey period, of which approximately 31.4 million, or 27 percent, involved opioids.

That historical record establishes that federal researchers were studying opioid and nonopioid analgesic use in ordinary medical practice during the early 1980s.

It cannot be plotted as though it were directly comparable to a modern retail-pharmacy dispensing rate.

New Mexico and Texas Retail Dispensing Rates

The following table reports retail opioid prescriptions dispensed per 100 persons.

New Mexico corresponds geographically to the complete New Mexico portion of the El Paso Division.

Texas is statewide context only. It does not measure the 17 West Texas counties administered by the division.

Year	New Mexico	Texas statewide context
2006	61.8	66.8
2007	69.0	71.2
2008	71.4	71.3
2009	75.3	71.8
2010	81.9	73.0
2011	81.6	72.0
2012	76.8	73.4
2013	71.4	70.0
2014	71.5	67.0
2015	69.8	59.8
2016	65.1	57.6
2017	56.4	52.2
2018	49.4	47.2
2019	43.4	42.1

The 2006 through 2009 figures come from CDC’s archived annual state dispensing tables.

The 2010 through 2013 figures document the peak and immediate post-peak period in both states.

The 2014 through 2018 figures document sustained declines.

The 2019 figures come from CDC’s archived 2019 state table.

No values were interpolated for missing years.

What the New Mexico Series Shows

New Mexico rose from 61.8 prescriptions per 100 persons in 2006 to a series high of 81.9 in 2010.

By 2018, the rate had fallen to 49.4.

By 2019, it had fallen to 43.4.

That represents an approximate 47 percent decline from the 2010 peak.

The decline was large and sustained.

It does not reveal why every prescription disappeared from the system.

It does not establish whether each reduction represented:

• Better prescribing;
• A patient no longer needing medicine;
• A voluntary treatment change;
• A forced taper;
• A practitioner leaving pain care;
• A pharmacy refusal;
• An insurance restriction;
• A patient unable to find treatment;
• A change in the underlying population.

The rate describes dispensing.

It does not independently judge the quality of care.

What the Texas Series Shows

Texas rose from 66.8 prescriptions per 100 persons in 2006 to a series high of 73.4 in 2012.

By 2018, the statewide rate had declined to 47.2.

By 2019, it had declined to 42.1.

That represents an approximate 43 percent decline from the 2012 peak.

The change provides useful state context.

It does not prove what happened within the El Paso Division’s 17 West Texas counties.

The statewide total includes major regions outside the division.

Without a current authoritative county list, Seeds of Vice will not aggregate selected counties and call the result an El Paso Division rate.

The 2017 Dosage Record

A separate CDC surveillance report provides additional information for 2017.

For New Mexico, the report identified:

2017 measure	Rate per 100 persons
All opioid prescriptions	56.4
Long-acting or extended-release prescriptions	4.4
Below 50 MME per day	41.8
50 to below 90 MME per day	10.2
90 MME per day or greater	4.4

For Texas, the same surveillance product reported:

2017 measure	Rate per 100 persons
All opioid prescriptions	53.0
Long-acting or extended-release prescriptions	3.3
Below 50 MME per day	44.5
50 to below 90 MME per day	6.0
90 MME per day or greater	2.6

The national all-opioid rate in that surveillance product was 58.5 prescriptions per 100 persons, while the national rate at or above 90 MME per day was 5.0.

The Texas all-opioid figure in this surveillance report, 53.0, differs slightly from the 52.2 figure in CDC’s historical state map.

That does not necessarily mean one number is false.

Different CDC products can reflect analytical revisions, data versions, or methodological treatments.

The responsible method is to identify the product being used and avoid selecting whichever version best supports the desired argument.

What MME Can and Cannot Do

Morphine milligram equivalents provide a standardized way to compare the relative opioid content of different medications.

MME can help researchers describe population-level dosage patterns.

It does not determine:

• The severity of an individual patient’s condition;
• Whether the patient developed tolerance;
• Whether the medicine improved function;
• Whether a lower dosage would have worked;
• Whether the patient could sleep or walk;
• Whether the prescription was issued in the usual course of practice;
• Whether the medicine was diverted;
• Whether a particular patient should be tapered.

MME is a measurement tool.

It is not a diagnosis or verdict.

2019 Through 2024

CDC’s current retail-pharmacy series reports that the national opioid-dispensing rate declined from 46.8 prescriptions per 100 persons in 2019 to 35.4 in 2024.

CDC states that the underlying IQVIA Xponent data are based on approximately 54,600 non-hospital retail pharmacies representing nearly 94 percent of United States retail prescriptions.

The data include new and refilled prescriptions paid through commercial insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, cash, and other sources.

They exclude mail-order prescriptions.

Geographic assignment is based on the prescriber’s location rather than necessarily the patient’s residence or the dispensing pharmacy.

Methadone dispensed through opioid-treatment programs is excluded.

State and national numerators are projected estimates, while population denominators come from Census estimates.

CDC’s current interactive presentation contains state information through 2024.

During this review, the static citable text did not expose stable individual 2024 rows for New Mexico and Texas.

This page therefore reports:

• The verified national series through 2024;
• The recoverable New Mexico and Texas historical series through 2019;
• No invented state values;
• No interpolation across unavailable years.

An unavailable number is not permission to create one.

The Central Statistical Finding

New Mexico and Texas both experienced substantial increases during the early portion of the available CDC series, followed by sustained declines.

From the reported peaks through 2019:

• New Mexico declined approximately 47 percent;
• Texas declined approximately 43 percent.

The direction of change is clear.

The cause cannot be assigned to one institution from the dispensing data alone.

The decline may reflect the combined influence of:

• DEA enforcement;
• State monitoring programs;
• State prescribing laws;
• Medical-board expectations;
• CDC guidance;
• Insurers;
• Hospital systems;
• Corporate pharmacies;
• Civil litigation;
• Manufacturers and distributors;
• Clinical judgment;
• Patient preferences;
• Changes in medical education and culture.

The dispensing data establish what happened to the measured rate.

They do not determine how much responsibility belongs to each institution.

What the Statistics Prove

The available record proves that:

• New Mexico dispensing increased substantially between 2006 and 2010;
• Texas statewide dispensing increased through 2012;
• Both states experienced sustained declines afterward;
• New Mexico’s rate declined by approximately 47 percent from its reported peak through 2019;
• Texas’s statewide rate declined by approximately 43 percent from its reported peak through 2019;
• New Mexico’s statewide data geographically correspond to the division’s New Mexico territory;
• Texas statewide data do not correspond to the division’s 17 West Texas counties;
• National retail dispensing continued to decline through 2024;
• High-dose, total-prescription, long-acting, and MME measures describe different aspects of prescribing;
• No honest analysis can combine every historical measure into one seamless 1984-to-present line.

What the Statistics Cannot Prove

The statistics cannot prove that every prescription removed from the system was unnecessary.

They cannot prove that every prescription remaining in the system was appropriate.

They cannot determine whether an individual patient:

• Could walk;
• Could sleep;
• Could work;
• Could recover from surgery;
• Could care for family;
• Could remain independent;
• Received enough medicine;
• Received too much medicine;
• Was abandoned;
• Was involuntarily tapered;
• Could locate a pharmacy;
• Could find a willing practitioner.

The data do not count prescriptions never written because a practitioner refused to accept the patient.

They do not count lawful prescriptions a pharmacy declined to fill.

They do not identify every medication shortage.

They do not directly measure:

• Pain severity;
• Functional ability;
• Quality of life;
• Suicide;
• Untreated suffering;
• Adequacy of postoperative care;
• Whether an individual prescribing decision was medically justified.

The numbers measure portions of medicine distributed.

They do not fully measure the human consequences of what was withheld.

Seeds of Vice Analysis

What the Official Record Proves

The El Paso Division is a geographically expansive domestic command serving all of New Mexico and 17 counties of West Texas.

Its current public contact network includes El Paso, Alpine, Midland, Albuquerque, and Las Cruces.

Roswell was officially identified as an office in 2024 but is missing from the current public listing.

DEA’s 2024 recruiting announcement also incorrectly described six named locations as five offices.

Omar Arellano remains the publicly listed permanent Special Agent in Charge, while Mark Putnam served as Acting Special Agent in Charge for at least part of July 2026.

The public record does not explain the acting arrangement.

The division has a publicly identified Diversion Program Manager, Registration Program Specialist, and Diversion Outreach Specialist.

It also has a publicly documented Tactical Diversion Squad with access to conventional criminal-investigative methods.

The official record proves that diversion from the lawful medical channel is real.

Practitioners can prescribe without valid authority.

Physicians can prescribe outside professional practice.

Pharmacies can fail to account for thousands of controlled doses.

Records can fail to show where medication went.

Those are legitimate subjects of investigation.

The record equally proves that DEA’s mission includes ensuring adequate and uninterrupted legitimate supply.

That responsibility must remain part of any honest evaluation.

What the Record Suggests

The El Paso Division’s structure suggests that its leadership and broader enforcement culture are strongly shaped by the international-border environment.

Its permanent leader’s background includes Mexico City, Ciudad Juárez, Colombia, international money laundering, foreign operations, and cartel investigations.

EPIC, a national multiagency intelligence institution, is also based in El Paso.

Those facts do not prove that diversion investigators treat lawful practitioners as international traffickers.

They do establish the larger enforcement institution in which the diversion program operates.

The division’s geography also suggests that registration and access decisions can have unequal consequences.

Losing one prescriber or pharmacy in a major metropolitan area may be disruptive.

Losing one in an isolated New Mexico or West Texas community may eliminate the only practical local option.

The official sources reviewed here do not measure that consequence.

The absence of measurement does not make the consequence impossible.

It makes it an unanswered institutional question.

The prescribing record further suggests a major change in regional medical practice.

New Mexico and Texas both experienced large, sustained dispensing declines.

No single physician, investigation, guideline, agency, or law can reasonably explain a transformation of that scale.

The evidence supports an inference of systemic change.

DEA formed part of that system.

So did state monitoring programs, licensing boards, insurers, healthcare systems, pharmacies, litigation, guidelines, and medical culture.

The patient experienced their combined effect.

What Seeds of Vice Concludes

Diversion control has a legitimate purpose.

A dentist prescribing after losing legal authority is not ordinary medical judgment.

A physician prescribing outside professional practice and without legitimate medical purpose is not protected merely because a prescription form was used.

A pharmacy unable to account for tens of thousands of doses has failed to preserve the traceability on which the closed system depends.

Investigating those matters protects patients and preserves the lawful channel.

The patient who legitimately needs controlled medicine is also part of that lawful channel.

That patient is not an accidental exception to the system.

The patient is one of the reasons the system exists.

The El Paso Division should therefore be judged by both halves of DEA’s official mission.

Does it detect and stop actual diversion?

Does it preserve adequate and uninterrupted access for legitimate medical needs?

Does it distinguish documented fraud from an unusual but lawful treatment plan?

Does it recognize the difference between physical dependence and criminal conduct?

Does it measure the effect of enforcement on practitioners who have committed no crime?

Does it identify when hospitals, insurers, clinics, or pharmacies impose restrictions federal law never required?

Does it account for the special vulnerability of patients separated from alternative care by hundreds of miles?

Does it protect patients from theft without treating every patient as a likely source of theft?

Does it regard a descending prescription line as evidence requiring interpretation—or as proof of success by itself?

Control alone is not enough.

Availability alone is not enough.

A system permitting uncontrolled theft, fraud, falsification, and unlawful distribution is unsafe.

A system in which lawful medicine exists in statutes and warehouses but cannot be obtained by legitimate patients is also unsafe.

The proper standard is lawful control and lawful availability.

New Mexico and Texas have experienced substantial reductions in opioid dispensing.

The burden is not merely to display the descending line and call it progress.

The burden is to prove what improved, who was protected, what harms were prevented, what harms were created, and whether the harmless patient left without medicine still had a lawful place to go.

Contact Information

Headquarters

DEA El Paso Division
660 Mesa Hills Drive
Suite 2000
El Paso, Texas 79912

Main telephone: (915) 832-6000

Media Inquiries

Carlos A. Briano
(571) 324-7093
carlos.a.briano@dea.gov

Recruitment

Elizabeth Borruel
(915) 832-6000
ElPasoSpecialAgentRecruiter@dea.gov

Community Outreach

Michelle Rincon
(915) 479-2540
Michelle.Rincon@dea.gov

New Mexico Public Contacts

Albuquerque: (505) 452-4500
Las Cruces: (575) 526-0700

West Texas Public Contacts

Alpine: (432) 837-6000
Midland: (432) 686-4085.

Roswell

DEA identified Roswell as an El Paso Division office in February 2024 but does not list a current Roswell contact on its primary division page.

Questions concerning Roswell-area operations should therefore be directed to Albuquerque or the El Paso headquarters unless DEA publishes a restored or updated Roswell contact.

Sources and Methodology

This page was assembled primarily from current official records published by:

• The Drug Enforcement Administration;
• DEA’s Diversion Control Division;
• The United States Department of Justice;
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;
• The Texas State Board of Pharmacy;
• The New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department;
• The New Mexico Board of Pharmacy.

Official DEA sources were compared with one another rather than presumed to be internally consistent.

The current jurisdiction was determined from DEA’s appointment announcement stating that the division serves all of New Mexico and 17 West Texas counties.

No county-by-county West Texas boundary was invented.

Texas statewide data were explicitly labeled as statewide context rather than an El Paso Division rate.

New Mexico statewide data were presented because the complete state falls within the division.

The current permanent leader was identified from DEA’s live leadership pages.

The official July 2026 references to Mark Putnam as Acting Special Agent in Charge were also preserved.

No reason for the acting assignment was invented.

Roswell was included in the office discussion because DEA officially identified it in 2024.

It was not described as currently active because the current public page omits it.

No office number, staffing level, classification, or closure date was invented.

Personnel were included only when current official records publicly identified them.

No complete employee roster was constructed from social-media profiles, commercial databases, or stale assignments.

Enforcement matters were described according to their legal posture.

Allegations were identified as allegations.

Civil settlements were not described as criminal convictions.

A guilty plea was treated as admitted conduct.

A court judgment was distinguished from a negotiated settlement.

State prescription-monitoring systems were not mislabeled as DEA databases.

Historical prescribing measures were kept separate according to their original definitions.

No interpolation was performed across missing years.

Office-visit drug mentions were not treated as retail prescriptions.

Prescription counts were not treated as dosage.

MME was not treated as an individual medical judgment.

The national retail-pharmacy series is presented through 2024.

The state historical series is presented through the latest complete and stably recoverable annual values used for this page: 2019.

An unavailable number is reported as unavailable.

It is not replaced with a convenient estimate.

Verification date: July 24, 2026