Marla Ollinger lives on a 300-acre ranch close to Browning, Montana. Her son, Justin Lee Littledog, moved in along with her in 2020. He died of a fentanyl overdose in March.
Tony Bynum for KHN
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Tony Bynum for KHN
Marla Ollinger lives on a 300-acre ranch close to Browning, Montana. Her son, Justin Lee Littledog, moved in along with her in 2020. He died of a fentanyl overdose in March.
Tony Bynum for KHN
BROWNING, Mont. — In the summertime of 2020, because the pandemic raged, Justin Lee Littledog known as his mom to inform her she was transferring from Texas to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana. And he was taking his girlfriend, stepson and his son.
They moved in with their mom, Marla Ollinger, who lived on a 300-acre ranch within the rolling prairie exterior Browning, and had what Ollinger says was the most effective summer season of her life. “That was the primary time I met Arlin, my first grandson,” says Ollinger. One other grandson was born within the spring of 2021, and Littledog, 33, discovered upkeep work on the Browning on line casino to assist his rising household.
However issues started to unravel over the following yr and a half. Family and friends noticed Littledog’s 6-year-old stepson strolling round city alone. Then final fall, Ollinger acquired a name from one other of his grownup youngsters. He was scared as a result of he did not briefly get up Littledog’s girlfriend. Ollinger says that he might hear one among Littledog’s youngsters crying within the background.
After that incident, Ollinger requested Littledog if he and his girlfriend have been utilizing medication. She says that Littledog denied it. He defined to his mom that individuals on the reservation have been utilizing a drug he had by no means heard of: fentanyl, an artificial opioid that’s as much as 100 instances extra highly effective than morphine. He stated that he would by no means use one thing so harmful and warranted his mother that the whole lot was nice. Ollinger backed away, fearing that any additional confrontation would drive the son away from him.
Then in March, Ollinger woke as much as screaming. He left his grandchildren, who have been sleeping in his mattress, and went into the following room. “My son was mendacity on the bottom,” she says. Littledog wasn’t respiratory.
After calling 911, he drove behind the ambulance towards Browning. He was pronounced useless shortly after the ambulance arrived on the native hospital.
Littledog was one among 4 individuals who died of a fentanyl overdose on the reservation within the second week of March, based on Blackfeet well being officers. One other 13 individuals on the reservation survived overdoses that week, making a staggering whole for an indigenous inhabitants of about 10,000 individuals.
Fall prey to fentanyl
A cemetery in Browning. Littledog was one among 4 individuals who died of fentanyl overdoses on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in a single week in March, based on Blackfeet officers.
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Through the pandemic, fentanyl took root in Montana and in communities within the Mountain West area, says Keith Humphreys of the Stanford-Lancet Fee on the North American Opioid Disaster. Beforehand, the drug was prevalent east of the Mississippi River.
Montana regulation enforcement officers have intercepted a report variety of pale blue tablets made to appear to be prescription opioids like OxyContin. Within the first three months of 2022, the Montana Freeway Patrol seized greater than 12,000 fentanyl tablets, greater than triple the quantity in 2021.
Nationwide, at the very least 103,000 individuals have died from drug overdoses in 2021, a 45% enhance from 2019, based on knowledge from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. About 7 in 10 of these deaths have been from artificial opioids, primarily fentanyl.
Overdose deaths disproportionately have an effect on Native People. The overdose demise charge amongst Native People was the very best of any racial group within the first yr of the pandemic, and was about 30% increased than the speed amongst whites, based on a March examine revealed in JAMA Psychiatryco-authored with Joe Friedman, a researcher on the College of California, Los Angeles.
In Montana, the opioid overdose demise charge for Native People was twice that of whites between 2019 and 2021, based on the state Division of Public Well being and Human Providers.
A part of the explanation that is taking place is that Native People have comparatively much less entry to well being care assets, Friedman says. “With the drug provide turning into so harmful and poisonous, it takes assets, information, abilities and funds.” [for people] to remain protected,” he says. “It requires entry to hurt discount, well being care, treatment.”
The Indian Well being Service, which is answerable for offering well being care to many indigenous peoples, has been chronically underfunded. In keeping with a 2018 report from the US Fee on Civil Rights, IHS spends per affected person considerably lower than different federal well being packages.
“What we’re seeing now are deep-seated disparities and the social determinants of well being are confirmed,” Friedman says, referring to disproportionate overdose deaths amongst Native People.
Stacey Keller, a member of the Blackfeet Tribal Enterprise Council, says she has skilled the shortage of assets firsthand when attempting to get a member of the family into remedy. She says it was tough to discover a detox middle, not to mention one for remedy.
“Our remedy middle right here is just not outfitted to deal with opiate dependancy, so [people] they’re often referred” to off-reservation services, she says. “A few of the issues we have seen throughout the state and even within the western a part of the USA is that plenty of the remedy facilities are full.”
Fentanyl took root in Montana and communities within the Mountain West area in the course of the pandemic, and drug overdose deaths on the whole are disproportionately affecting Native People.
Tony Bynum for KHN
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Fentanyl took root in Montana and communities within the Mountain West area in the course of the pandemic, and drug overdose deaths on the whole are disproportionately affecting Native People.
Tony Bynum for KHN
The native remedy middle doesn’t have the medical experience to oversee somebody experiencing opiate withdrawal. There are solely two out there detox beds on the native IHS hospital, Keller says, and they’re typically full. The reservation’s well being care system additionally doesn’t supply medicines to deal with opiate addictions. The closest areas to get buprenorphine or methadone, for instance, they’re 30 to 100 miles aside. That may be a burden for sufferers who’re required by federal rules to take these medication to handle their remedy on a each day or weekly foundation.
Discover remedy for indigenous communities
Keller says tribal leaders have requested IHS help to construct remedy facilities and purchase different substance use assets, akin to detox beds and medicines, locally, to no avail.
IHS Alcohol and Substance Abuse Program marketing consultant JB Kinlacheeny says the company has largely shifted to allocating funds on to tribes to run their very own well being care packages.
The Rocky Mountain Council of Tribal Leaders, a consortium of Montana and Wyoming tribes, is working with the Montana Healthcare Basis on a feasibility examine for a tribally operated residential remedy middle particularly for tribal members. Tribes in each states, together with the Blackfeet, have handed resolutions supporting the hassle.
On March 14, Blackfeet political leaders declared a state of emergency after the fentanyl overdoses. Two weeks later, a number of the sons of Timothy Davis, the chairman of the tribal council, have been arrested on suspicion of promoting fentanyl out of Davis’ house. The council eliminated Davis from his put up in early April.
Browning is situated on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana.
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The tribe has created a activity drive to determine short-term and long-term wants to reply to the opioid disaster. Blackfeet Tribal Police investigator Misty LaPlant helps lead that effort.
Driving down Browning, LaPlant says he plans to coach extra individuals on the reservation to manage naloxone, a drug that reverses opioid overdoses. She additionally needs the tribe to host extra needle exchanges. There may be additionally hope, she says, that a reorganization of the tribal well being division will lead to a one-stop store for Blackfeet Nation residents to search out drug dependancy assets on and off the reservation.
Nonetheless, he says, it’s essential to deal with a number of the underlying points, akin to poverty, housing and meals insecurity, that make communities just like the Blackfeet Nation susceptible to the present fentanyl disaster. These issues can encourage individuals to make use of medication, and poor communities are sometimes simpler targets for drug sellers, she says. Fixing that downside is a large activity that will not be accomplished any time quickly, she says.
Marla Ollinger, pictured, says her son Justin Lee Littledog died of a fentanyl overdose in March at his ranch on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.
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In the meantime, Ollinger is optimistic that momentum is constructing to fight opioid and fentanyl dependancy within the wake of the deaths of his son and others. She hopes that sharing her story will assist advocate for extra assets so nobody else has to undergo her expertise.
“It is heartbreaking to see your youngsters die unnecessarily,” he says.
This story is a part of a partnership that features Montana Public Radio, NPR and KHN.
KHN (Kaiser Well being Information) is a nationwide newsroom that produces detailed journalism on well being points. Together with Coverage Evaluation and Polling, KHN is likely one of the prime three working packages in KFF (Kaiser Household Basis). KFF is an endowed nonprofit group that gives data on well being points to the nation.
