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Addressing Heart Disease in New Mexico

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Addressing Heart Disease in New Mexico Why a cigarette tax is a viable solution Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in New Mexico. One out of five deaths are due to heart disease. The economic costs are mind-boggling: an estimated $4.4 billion per year— in medical care and absenteeism. Taking the number of deaths in 2020 this can be estimated to be $1.04 million loss per death.    A question everyone should be asking themselves: are there factors that will increase my likelihood of experiencing heart disease?   Smoking is one of the top three risk factors for heart disease [i] . The other two risk factors are high blood pressure and high cholesterol.    To combat the number of deaths caused by heart disease, decision makers should target smoking rates in New Mexico. Quitting smoking reduces the risk of heart disease by half after one year [ ii ]. A cigarette tax could help reduce smoking rates. In 2019, New Mexico raised the cigarette tax
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Domestic Violence in New Mexico

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  Too Many New Mexicans Experience Domestic Violence Let's start with an activity. Take a moment to think about the most important people in your life. Now, have any of them experienced any form of domestic violence? Within 30 secs, many of us can think of at least one person who has. In the United States, 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men will experience domestic violence in their lifetime [i] . In 2020, 20,144 domestic violence cases were reported to New Mexico’s law enforcement [ii] . If there are no changes to address the root cause of the issue or increase funding, domestic violence could stay the same or get worse. Based on what the USA pays for domestic violence, it costs New Mexico 26.9 million dollars to deal with the 20,144 cases annually. Numerous efforts are made yearly to address domestic violence. A barrier when addressing this issue is New Mexico's low prosecution and high dismissal rates of domestic violence cases. To combat domestic violence, New Mexico should adopt
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