Andrea Thomas from Voices for Awareness Facing Fentanyl presents at the Waapi Kani Mental Health Wellness & Recovery Services Fentanyl Awareness Community Day event on Tuesday, May 7.
By ROSELYNN YAZZIE
Sho-Ban News
FORT HALL — Education and prevention by starting conversations about fentanyl were the focus of the Waapi Kani Mental Health Wellness & Recovery Services Fentanyl Awareness Community Day event on Tuesday, May 7 at Timbee Hall.
The day is recognized nationally to bring together efforts to end the crisis.
According to fentanylawarenessday.org last year over 70,000 Americans fatally overdosed on illegally made fentanyl. Fentanyl is now found in fake pills and many street drugs, but users are often unaware that their drugs contain the potent opioid.
Lemuel Stone offered a prayer to start the event.
A welcome was given by Tribal Health & Human Services Director Travis Martin who talked about the importance of the event to the community.
Fort Hall Business Council Secretary Claudia Washakie called fentanyl an epidemic and how it affects all tribal members.
She asked people to talk about fentanyl with their family members, especially those who are using.
“We need them to know we love them and we don’t like what they’re doing to themselves,” she said.
Michael Fiore, Outreach Coordinator for Voices For Awareness
Foundation and Project Facing Fentanyl.
Washakie said people need to call law enforcement if they come into a situation or see someone has overdosed. She sees the need to support programs with funding for handling the fentanyl issues.
She talked about tribal communities who’ve taken an active approach to fentanyl, such as the Lummi Nation. She showed a video on YouTube called “Enough is Enough,” which shows their community banding together with their local law enforcement and going to known drug houses. They reach out to the occupants and sing healing songs beginning the steps to take back their community.
Washakie wants to see more done in the community. She asked, how many deaths need to take place before we say, “Enough is enough.” Adding, leadership needs to be involved. She thanked the attendees for taking a stand against fentanyl by attending the event.
Detective Sweat from the Fort Hall Police Department gave a presentation on fentanyl and local statistics.
He began speaking about heroin and defined it as an opioid drug made from morphine, a natural substance taken from the seed pod of the various opium poppy plants grown in Southeast and Southwest Asia., Mexico, and Columbia. Heroin can be a white or brown powder, or a black sticky substance, known as black for heroin.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid painkiller, used as an anesthetic and prescribed for severe and chronic pain.
Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin. Fentanyl is 100 times more potent than morphine. 2 mg of fentanyl is considered a lethal dose.
Fentanyl is transdermal, which means it can enter your body through the skin and one can overdose by just touching it. Sweat advised not to use hand sanitizer if exposed to fentanyl, and use soap and water.
Symptoms of fentanyl exposure include disorientation, coughing, difficulty breathing, sedation, and rapid and profound cardiac arrest.
Detective Sweat gave numbers for overdose calls in Fort Hall from 2019 to now, however, the numbers only reflect the calls recorded by dispatch. In 2019 they received 7 calls, in 2020 they received 13 calls, in 2021 they had 57 calls, in 2022 they had 28 calls, in 2023 they saw a rise again with 25 calls and as of now in 2024 they have had five calls.
The invited speaker was Andrea Thomas from Voices for Awareness Facing Fentanyl. She truly believes gatherings like this can make a huge difference. Every time she comes to a reservation she sees everyone so connected and that’s what’s needed outside the reservation for people to come together and to care about their communities, support each other, and find solutions.
Thomas showed a video on families affected by fentanyl, so that people will connect.
Thomas shared the story of how she lost her daughter, who struggled with alcoholism and developed pancreatitis as a result. Suffering in pain and not wanting to go to the hospital because she felt judged. Her boyfriend gave her a fentanyl pill to ease the discomfort and it ultimately killed her. Thomas said if she knew about fentanyl in 2018 when she lost her daughter she may have had a chance to save her.
This motivated Thomas to want to help spread awareness because it’s killing the unsuspecting, those experimenting and those already using.
“There are people out there that don’t know. Seniors are raising their grandchildren, right, because they’ve lost one or more parents to fentanyl poisoning. Young people 14 and younger are dying at the fastest rate from fentanyl poisoning. And so, this age group of 18 to 49 that are being affected, so that tells you across the board that no one’s immune and it could happen to anyone,” she said.
She brought attention to National Fentanyl Prevention and Awareness Day on August 21, the day is established to remember those lost to illicit fentanyl poisoning and to acknowledge those affected as a result, such as friends and family.
Thomas said, “We need to act stronger. We need to be louder.”
A statistic she pointed out was teen deaths have risen by 77 percent due to fentanyl.
“We need to stop before it starts that’s where prevention comes in,” she said. She hopes people take what they hear today and share it because talking about it and giving others a little bit of information can save a life.
Andrea Thomas speaks to Fort Hall community after the event.
Michael Fiore, Outreach Coordinator for Voices For Awareness Foundation and Project Facing
Fentanyl talked about how valuable people can be in recovery. He said it was from their experiences and strength from their recovery that can help others.
He said, “Every five minutes someone is lost to fentanyl poisoning.”
He explained overdose is excessive use of drugs and our loved ones are being poisoned.
Fiore said we need to talk about how deadly fentanyl is. He encouraged those revering should do so out loud.
“This needs to become one voice that we are here to help. Don’t be ashamed to what you been through. These kids need us. There are solutions in our recovery. Our lives are going to be needed to save other lives. Take the opportunity to share your story with somebody. Recover out loud, it’s a movement. It’s not a drug, it’s not an overdose. It’s a poison. This is killing the unsuspecting,” he said.
Fiore had a few more fentanyl facts, such as one can’t smell, taste, or see it. There are two types of fentanyl, pharmaceutical, which is legal, prescribed by doctors, and monitored and regulated. Illicit is manufactured, smuggled into the U.S., and sold illegally and not regulated safe, or legal. Illicit fentanyl can be found in street drugs, fake pressed pills, and marijuana, vape pens, and THC gummies, street names include Fetty, China Girl, Murder 8.
Again, Just 2 mg of illicit fentanyl can cause sudden death, which is the size of a few grains of salt. Fentanyl can shut down the respiratory system and can cause a form of suffocation.
Signs of overdose are unconsciousness, very small pupils, vomiting inability to speak, snoring, gasping, gurgling sounds, known as the “death rattle,” foaming at the mouth, blood from nose and mouth, purple lips/fingernails, weak pulse, discolored skin bluish/purple.
Fentanyl pills can be made to look like prescriptions. There is no safe amount to take.
Opioid Reversal Kits and Naloxone spray were available after the presentations.
Fiore went over the steps to save a life, first step is to call 911, distribute Naloxone, or Narcan in the nostril if on hand, and start CPR. Kits were provided to those who attended.
Thomas explained the tools are available so people could take them. She said anyone can have them now, one doesn't have to be a drug user or have drugs in their home, but you don’t know who you’re going to come into contact with that may need it. It’s simple to spray in the nose to save someone’s life.
She cautions people these emerging drugs are more dangerous than fentanyl and there are no antidotes for them.
Thomas said there needs to be more prevention and action, “Then maybe we can create an educated society that we can empower them to make better choices and to be safer.”
She said people have to work together, “Just by coming together there’s solutions in all groups for all of the pieces of this crisis. We have a national security crisis, it’s a public health crisis and now it’s becoming a humanitarian crisis because so many people are virtually vanishing before our eyes from these dangerous drugs.”
Recovery panelists were tribal members Kelly Buckskin, Jon Marc Skunkcap, Melanie Longoria, and Shantel Stone. Each talked about their recovery journey in hopes of inspiring others.
For more information on this topic, go to https://facingfentanylnow.org/, https://voicesforawareness.com/, https://www.dea.gov/onepill