Santa Muerte is the saint who listens even to someone who asks for protection when planning an assassination or joining a gang war. But as we have seen, the saint is also quite willing to protect folks who just want to get high in peace; and also to help anyone who seeks freedom from the clutches of addiction.

Currently, Santa Muerte has an estimated 10 million devotees spread around the globe, with at least six million of those living in Mexico. In the USA, Los Angeles alone is alleged to contain more than a dozen worship centers devoted to this one saint:

For centuries, her worship remained hidden, practiced in secret by those who had been cast aside by mainstream religion — sex workers, prisoners, the homeless, and the poor… Santa Muerte embraced the outcasts. She did not require confession or penance. She simply listened.

Condemnation, by Catholic and Protestant denominations alike, has not prevented the Cult of Santa Muerte from flourishing in Mexico, especially since the early 2000s. The existence of shrines in many headquarters and hangouts has shown linkage between the devotees and hardcore crime. One local boss has even been shot down right at his altar.

Both police and criminal gangs regard the saint as theirs, and even the most knowledgeable divinity scholar would be hard-pressed to cite a similar example in the annals of hagiography. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver once encountered a case that rested on whether a prayer handwritten on a piece of paper, which a suspect read from during a vehicle search, could legally be considered as a “tool of the drug trade.” A judge opined that “A criminal trial is not a place for a theological disputation on sainthood and the power of prayer.”

When law enforcement personnel raid a suspected drug gang hangout, they are often obliged to dismantle the Lady’s household shrine, and police who participate in such destruction have reported suffering from headaches, dizziness and nausea. After such divine retaliation, it must be awkward for the officers who then have to go home and apologize and seek forgiveness at their own domestic altars.

When monks sailed across the ocean from Spain to convert the indigenous population of the New World, they did not foresee any of this, or they might have paused to reflect, and turned around and gone back home.

Another quotation, this one from R. Andrew Chesnut, says:

[…] Very few media reports and films show anything but the dark side of the cult of Santa Muerte. Most American and Mexican nonbelievers, for example, have little idea that the Skinny Lady heals sickness, finds employment, and helps alcoholics and drug addicts in their struggles for sobriety…

Plenty of spiritual help is available online. For instance on this page of “39 powerful prayers,” “Breaking Addiction Chains” can be found in the Healing and Recovery section, and most of these specialized prayers would suit, including “Courage for New Beginnings,” “New Chapter Prayer” and “Complete Restoration Prayer.”

Although Santa Muerte is not officially approved by the Catholic church, a Catholic website exploring the question of the saint’s usefulness quoted a female abuse survivor:

I read just one sentence about la Madrina and I felt a huge, warming, peaceful, joyfulness within my soul so pure that I wanted to burst into happy tears… I started to slowly pray to her and turn to her and with each day my faith grew stronger.

She is the saint for the forgotten, the disempowered, the scorned, the discriminated-against, the impoverished, the bereaved, the individuals who just can’t wrestle themselves into conformity. In places where women are routinely brutalized and casually murdered, she is implored to weave a cloak of safety.

In New York, she is worshipped by a cohesive transgender community. In this wicked world, some folks can buy themselves a Congressperson; others seek to influence their fates by buying a candle or a bottle of soda for the Bony Lady. Even in prison, convicts find the resources to create small altars:

Santa Muerte is so popular among both inmates and prison guards in Mexico that she can be considered the patron saint of the entire Mexican penal system. Both inmates and guards ask the death saint to protect them from the constant dangers of prison life…

A saint powerful enough to shelter both both criminals and cops, can certainly — if asked nicely — supply the muscle to defeat mere heroin or meth. Those who advocate Santa Muerte as a liberator of individuals from drugs will share stories of alcoholics who instantly were able to give up their poison, and similar miraculous transformations.

With other addicts, recovery might be more lengthy. Hooked people relate experiences like this one, recorded by journalist Sophia Wright:

When it comes to Santa Muerte, sometimes healing your addiction takes time — because she’s going to fix all the psychological damage.

Either way, devotees can’t help wanting to spread the miraculous good news. They love to share tales of their own transformative journeys and those of their friends and loved ones, where the merging of spiritual belief with tangible change “becomes the catalyst for transformation.”

Wright continues:

As more testimony surfaces, support networks could flourish, blending traditional therapy with spiritual practices. It raises questions about the blend of spirituality and recovery. Could this alternative approach spark a new understanding of addiction recovery solutions? Already, local communities are seeing increased participation in rituals honoring Santa Muerte, which could lead to broader acceptance and an expanded role for spirituality in mental health support.

A recent, long and complicated article by strategic communication specialist Douglas Wilbur provides plenty of meat for psychologists and sociologists. The whole concept of a saint protecting drug lords who look at murder as not a very big deal at all, but as more of a tool, no more blameworthy than a compass, should be looked into. That same energy could be captured to work for non-criminal addicts who want out.

Writing with precision and originality and scholarly consciousness (27 referential endnotes in this piece alone), Wilbur advocates “mapping the symbolic structure of criminal variant based Santa Muerte worship, its themes, anchors, and their pairings.” This would open the possibility to “identify leverage points for targeted interventions across cognitive, cultural, and religious/ritualistic domains.”

Wilbur writes:

If cartels can weaponize belief through symbols, then information warriors must learn to disarm them the same way. They must target the symbols themselves. The extreme narco based Santa Muerte belief system is not immune to disruption; it is built on recognizable patterns, emotional rituals, and repeatable acts that can be mapped, weakened, and replaced.

In other words, the quest here is for the most effective ways to brainwash people and replace their previous beliefs with new ones. If all that energy can be turned to curing addiction, it is certainly worth the effort.

Written by Pat Hartman. First published October 31, 2025.

Sources:

“Santa Muerte: The Cult of Death and Its Connection to Cartels and Crime,” MaloriesAdventures.com, February 21, 2025.

“Santa Muerte Goes to Court,” StopTheDrugWar.org, July 21, 2015.

“Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint,” Academic.oup.com, January 3, 2012.

“39 Powerful Prayers for Santa Muerte’s Protection, Love & Guidance,” ShineBiblical.com, undated.

“Santa Muerte: Dangerous superstition or empowering guardian?,” USCatholic.org, October 30, 2023.

“Santa Muerte | Aiding Sobriety Amid Substance Abuse Struggles,” MysteryLores.com, May 13, 2025.

“Faith as a Battlespace: Exploratory CONOPS for Undermining the Narcocultura Elements of Santa Muerte Symbolism,” SmallWarsJournal.com, July 25, 2025.

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