Drug Dial

Santa Fe residents are calling a new citywide drug tip hotline roughly once a day, according to Santa Fe Police Department numbers.

The drug tip hotline, introduced by City Councilor Bill Dimas, gives residents a phone number solely dedicated to illegal drug-related tips. Tips are fielded by dispatchers, who relay them to either police officers or investigative units, depending on the immediacy of the situation.

Since launching in April, the hotline has fielded at least 138 calls. It has averaged just over 30 calls a month, although the numbers for August so far are lower. In April, 30 people called the hotline, while in May, that number dropped slightly to 23. June saw the most people call, with 39, while July stayed up with 35, city records show.

As of Aug. 19, the hotline had fielded just 11 calls for the month.

Yet city officials aren't ready to report on whether the hotline has led to actual arrests or citations. Asked for the information last week, police spokeswoman Celina Espinoza tells SFR she couldn't track down those records before press time.

Dimas introduced the hotline as a new way to crack down on city drug crimes, which he and others maintain are largely behind Santa Fe's property crimes. SFPD also recently created a standalone narcotics unit to compliment the Region III Drug Enforcement Task Force, a federally funded program which encompasses Santa Fe, Los Alamos, Rio Arriba and Taos counties. City police issued a report earlier this month claiming property crimes were at a record low since it began collecting the stats in 2003.

The city urges residents to be their neighborhood narc. Call the drug tip hotline at 428-3737 to report suspicious activity.

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