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 summer season 2020, because the pandemic was setting in, Justin Lee Littledog referred to as his mother to inform her he was transferring from Texas again dwelling to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana. And he was taking his girlfriend, stepson and son.
They moved in together with his mother, Marla Ollinger, who lived on a 300-acre ranch on the rolling prairie outdoors Browning — and had what Ollinger says was the perfect summer season of her life. “That was the primary time I’ve gotten to fulfill Arlin, my first grandson,” Ollinger says. One other grandson was born within the spring of 2021 — and Littledog, 33, discovered upkeep work on the on line casino in Browning to assist his rising household.
However issues started to unravel over the following yr and a half. Buddies and family noticed Littledog’s 6-year-old stepson strolling round city alone. Then final fall, Ollinger acquired a name from one other considered one of her grownup sons. He was frightened as a result of he was briefly unable to wake Littledog’s girlfriend. Ollinger says she might hear considered one of Littledog’s kids crying within the background.
After that incident, Ollinger requested Littledog whether or not he and his girlfriend have been utilizing medicine. She says Littledog denied it. He defined to his mother that folks on the reservation have been utilizing a drug she had by no means heard about: fentanyl, an artificial opioid that’s as much as 100 instances as potent as morphine. He mentioned he would by no means use one thing so harmful and reassured his mother the whole lot was wonderful. Ollinger backed off, fearing that any extra confrontation would push her son away.
Then in March, Ollinger woke as much as screams. She left her grandchildren, who have been sleeping in her mattress, and went into the following room. “My son was mendacity on the ground,” she says. Littledog wasn’t respiratory.
After calling 911, she drove behind the ambulance into Browning. He was pronounced useless shortly after the ambulance arrived on the native hospital.
Littledog was considered one of 4 individuals who died from a fentanyl overdose on the reservation on the second week of March, based on Blackfeet well being officers. An extra 13 individuals on the reservation survived overdoses that week, making a startling whole for an Indigenous inhabitants of about 10,000 individuals.
Falling prey to fentanyl
A cemetery in Browning. Littledog was amongst 4 individuals to die from fentanyl overdoses on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in a single week in March, based on Blackfeet officers.
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Tony Bynum for KHN
In the course of the pandemic, fentanyl took root in Montana and communities throughout 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 file numbers of pale blue capsules made to appear to be prescription opioids resembling OxyContin. Within the first three months of 2022, the Montana Freeway Patrol seized over 12,000 fentanyl capsules, greater than thrice the quantity from 2021.
Nationwide, at the very least 103,000 individuals have died from drug overdoses in 2021, a forty five% improve from 2019, based on knowledge from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. About 7 of each 10 of these deaths have been from artificial opioids, primarily fentanyl.
Overdose deaths disproportionately have an effect on Native Individuals. The overdose loss of life charge amongst Indigenous individuals was the very best of all racial teams within the first yr of the pandemic — and was about 30% greater than the speed amongst white individuals, based on a March examine printed in JAMA Psychiatry, co-authored by Joe Friedman, a researcher on the College of California, Los Angeles.
In Montana, the opioid overdose loss of life charge for Indigenous individuals was twice that of white individuals from 2019 to 2021, based on the state’s Division of Public Well being and Human Providers.
A part of the explanation why that is occurring is that Native Individuals have comparatively much less entry to well being care sources, Friedman says. “With the drug provide changing into so harmful and poisonous, it requires sources and information and abilities and funds [for people] to remain secure,” he says. “It requires entry to hurt discount, well being care, drugs.”
The Indian Well being Service, which is accountable for offering well being care to many Indigenous individuals, has been chronically underfunded. In accordance with a 2018 report from the U.S. Fee on Civil Rights, IHS per affected person expenditures are considerably lower than these of different federal well being applications.
“What we’re seeing now’s deep-seated disparities and social determinants of well being form of bearing out,” Friedman says, referring to the disproportionate overdose deaths amongst Native Individuals.
Blackfeet Tribal Enterprise Council member Stacey Keller says she has skilled the shortage of sources firsthand whereas attempting to get a member of the family into therapy. She says simply discovering a facility for detoxing was tough, not to mention discovering one for therapy.
“Our therapy facility right here, they don’t seem to be outfitted to cope with opioid dependancy, so [people] are often referred” to amenities outdoors of the reservation, she says. “A few of the struggles we have seen all through the state and even the western a part of america is that a number of the therapy facilities are at capability.”
Fentanyl took root in Montana and in communities throughout the Mountain West area through the pandemic, and total drug overdose deaths are disproportionately affecting Native Individuals.
Tony Bynum for KHN
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Tony Bynum for KHN
Fentanyl took root in Montana and in communities throughout the Mountain West area through the pandemic, and total drug overdose deaths are disproportionately affecting Native Individuals.
Tony Bynum for KHN
The native therapy middle does not have the medical experience to oversee somebody going by means of opioid withdrawal. Solely two detox beds can be found on the native IHS hospital, Keller says, and they’re typically occupied. The well being care system on the reservation additionally does not supply medicine used to deal with opioid addictions. The closest places to get buprenorphine or methadone, for instance, are 30 to 100 miles away. That may be a burden to sufferers who’re required by federal guidelines to take these meds to handle their therapy on a every day or weekly foundation.
Discovering therapy for Indigenous communities
Keller says tribal leaders have requested help from IHS to construct therapy facilities and procure different substance use sources, like detox beds and medicine, in the neighborhood — with no outcomes.
IHS Alcohol and Substance Abuse Program marketing consultant JB Kinlacheeny says the company has largely shifted to appropriating funds on to tribes to run their very own well being care applications.
The Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council, a consortium of Montana and Wyoming tribes, is working with the Montana Healthcare Basis on a feasibility examine for a residential therapy middle operated by tribes, particularly for tribal members. Tribes throughout 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 kids of Timothy Davis, the tribal council chairman, have been arrested on suspicion of promoting fentanyl out of Davis’ dwelling. The council eliminated Davis from his place in early April.
Browning is positioned on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana.
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The tribe has created a process pressure to establish each the short- and long-term wants to answer the opioid disaster. Blackfeet tribal police investigator Misty LaPlant helps to guide that effort.
Driving round Browning, LaPlant says she plans to coach extra individuals on the reservation to manage naloxone, a medicine that reverses opioid overdoses. She additionally desires the tribe to host extra needle exchanges. There’s additionally hope, she says, {that a} reorganization of the tribal well being division will end in a one-stop store for Blackfeet Nation residents to search out drug dependancy sources on and off the reservation.
Nevertheless, she says, it is essential to resolve a number of the underlying points — resembling poverty, housing and meals insecurity — that make communities just like the Blackfeet Nation weak to the continued fentanyl disaster. These issues can spur individuals to make use of medicine — and under-resourced communities are typically simpler targets for drug traffickers, she says. Fixing that downside is a large endeavor that will not be accomplished anytime quickly, she says.
Marla Ollinger, pictured, says her son Justin Lee Littledog died of a fentanyl overdose in March at her ranch on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.
Tony Bynum for KHN
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Tony Bynum for KHN
In the meantime, Ollinger is feeling optimistic that momentum is constructing to battle opioid and fentanyl dependancy within the wake of her son’s loss of life and others. She hopes sharing her story will assist advocate for extra sources so nobody else has to dwell by means of her expertise.
“It is heartbreaking to observe your kids die unnecessarily,” she 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 in-depth journalism about well being points. Along with Coverage Evaluation and Polling, KHN is among the three main working applications at KFF (Kaiser Household Basis). KFF is an endowed nonprofit group offering info on well being points to the nation.
