Consider This from NPR - The Cherokee Nation's Fight Against The Opioid Crisis

Episode Date: March 21, 2023

The Cherokee Nation has been hit hard by opioid addiction and fentanyl-related overdose deaths. But the tribe has a plan to heal.Like many communities around the country, the Cherokee Nation received settlement money from big drug companies and pharmacy chains accused of fueling the opioid crisis. The tribe is investing that $100 million in programs to support treatment, harm reduction and a fight against stigma.Tribal leaders say the funds will save lives and save families.NPR's addiction correspondent Brian Mann traveled to Oklahoma to see how the Cherokee Nation is fighting the opioid crisis.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Fentanyl is a leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 40. But even when people survive, opioid addiction is breaking up families as parents lose custody of their children. And that means a lot of kids around the country are growing up without their biological parents because of the opioid crisis. Children like Mazzy Walker, a nine-year-old living on a farm near Tahlequah, Oklahoma, capital of the Cherokee Nation. Cows are walking, turkeys, a dog. I don't know what. Mazzy and her younger brother, Ransom, are Cherokee, and they were adopted by Gary Walker, who is also Cherokee, and his wife, Cassie Walker.

The children's biological parents had gotten caught up in opioid addiction. The Walkers have seen that scenario play out multiple times. They've fostered or adopted nine Cherokee children. Being in foster care and going to court cases, and sometimes I would sit there for four to five or six hours, and I would not only watch one court case, but I would watch 30 or 40 at the same time, and it really hit me then just how big the problem was. Struggles with addiction in Cherokee Nation are growing so intense

that the principal chief, Chuck Hoskin, worries it's threatening his people's way of life, their language, and their culture. Families not only being broken up, but children being removed from tribal lands, this is an additional pressure. And so anything we can do to keep families whole means we can keep our children. A growing number of Cherokee children are also born exposed to drugs in the womb, leading to developmental disabilities. That's what happened with Mazzy.

Well, I have a question. Sure. How old was I when I, like, learned to, like, talk and stuff? You were closer to three. Gary and Cassie Walker are trying to give Mazzy a different future, but Cassie says it's hard explaining to Mazzy and Ransom what's happening here. We always remind them that God gave them to us very special and that their parents were sick and so we were able to raise them. There is mothers out there that did lose their child and I was able to become their mother. So it's just a lot of emotions. Consider this. The opioid crisis and overdose deaths have had a devastating and disproportionate impact on Native American communities, including the Cherokee Nation.

But with medical help and therapy provided in part by their tribe, Mazzie and Ransom Walker are doing well. Their parents say they're thriving. And the community is fighting back, trying to help more Cherokee heal. We hear how after the break. From NPR, I'm Adrian Flaurido. It's Tuesday, March 21st. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the Wise app today,

or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. The Cherokee Nation is just one example of a community that's been devastated by the opioid fentanyl crisis, but it is fighting back through a public health effort. The tribe received $100 million in settlements from big pharmaceutical companies accused of fueling the opioid epidemic. Leaders think this money can help save lives and families. NPR's Brian Mann traveled to Tahlequah, Oklahoma, to see how the Cherokee Nation is putting that money to use. When Brenda Barnett was pregnant with her son, Ryan, she says the Cherokee reservation around Tahlequah, Oklahoma, was flooded with pain pills. Her Cherokee family had already been

scarred by her brother's long addiction to opioids. At that time, I was thinking, I can't go through what my mom went through. I can't do it. I was terrified. That was one of the biggest fears I had in raising a child. And it happened. It happened. Her son, Ryan, was 15 when he hurt his hand in a car door a doctor prescribed OxyContin. In a way, they're lucky. Ryan survived. But he says that first opioid prescription, that first high derailed his life. I'd never experienced this before. We're at Sonic getting a cheeseburger on the way home. I was like, this is great. You know, I will do whatever I got to do to feel this way forever. Sitting with his mom at their kitchen table,

Ryan says he hates talking about what followed. He feels a lot of shame. 10 years lost to pain pills, heroin and fentanyl. You know, I did take a big chunk of my life and threw it in the trash. Brenda and Ryan say a lot of Cherokee, their friends and neighbors, didn't survive. You know, you lose your best friends in this whole thing. If they're alive, they're in prison for the most part. Through the opioid epidemic that began in the late 90s, a lot of the public's awareness and most of the public health response focused on rural white communities.

But new studies and prescription drug distribution data released as part of opioid lawsuits show Native American towns like Tahlequah were also swamped with pain pills. Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin heads the Cherokee Nation. I'm completely convinced that the industry bears responsibility because of the number of pills that were dumped onto the reservation. And that's not an accident. That's because there was profit to be gained. Thousands of governments around the U.S., including tribal governments, sued. They took on the biggest corporations in America that made and sold opioid medications. In the end, most of those companies, including Johnson & Johnson

and Walmart, agreed to national settlements, cash payouts worth more than $50 billion. Chief Hoskins says his tribe's share of that money, roughly $100 million, is already revolutionizing addiction care for the Cherokee. The suffering would have continued. Our inability to directly provide care would have been very limited. And now that's completely changed. Three, two, one. The next big project is a state-of-the-art inpatient recovery center planned for Tahlequah, capital of the Cherokee Nation.

The ceremony unveiling the project is packed with tribal leaders and Cherokee families who've lost loved ones or struggled with addiction. That's where I met Jennifer Pena Lassiter, a Cherokee addicted to pain pills and heroin for 11 years. The opioid industry harmed millions of people. I mean, you know, thousands of Cherokees have been devastated by it all. Pena Lassiter lost custody of her children and spent time in prison before rebuilding her life with help from the tribe. She says these new facilities and programs will help more people heal faster. I believe that the Cherokee Nation is doing right by this money that they got from the settlement.

There's already a new harm reduction clinic here. The tribal hospital now offers buprenorphine, a medication that helps people with opioid addiction avoid relapses. Roughly 400 Cherokee are getting that treatment. Over the next five years, the tribe plans to roll out $75 million in new treatment facilities, a huge change for a reservation with a population of around 150,000 Cherokee. So this is a hopeful moment, but also a perilous one. Pena Lassiter tells me pain pills and heroin have given way to fentanyl on the reservation. It's terrible. It's everywhere. There are people dying here all the time. If I go into a gas station at any time, somebody could be, you know, dead in the bathroom.

Fentanyl is now a leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 40. Research funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the biggest spike in fatal overdoses among Native Americans. Sharp increase in the last two years and even sharper in the last year. Sam Bradshaw is Cherokee and heads the tribe's addiction prevention program. A lot of the kids are experimenting with drugs that they don't know what's in them. And so fentanyl is mixed up in pills they're taking. Part of the settlement money will go to create more targeted, culturally appropriate messages to warn and guide young Cherokee. After so much death and loss here, there is one more reality that angers a lot of Cherokee. While America's

big drug companies agreed to pay billions of dollars, none apologized or admitted wrongdoing. Principal Chief Chuck Hoskins says it's infuriating only a handful of drug company executives were prosecuted. You know, justice is a relative term. But the way that I look at it in this moment is that we have an opportunity to save lives going forward. Getting these dollars in now is important. So I feel good about the measure of justice that we have. Back in the Barnett's kitchen, Brenda says she thinks the tribe is doing its best to move quickly. They are taking care of our people.

After decades of suffering, she believes the Cherokee Nation could actually become a model for how small towns respond to the opioid fentanyl crisis. You know what? We're poised to do a better job than anything out there. To see them coming in and saying, these are our people. They're not throwaway because they have this disease. With financial help and health care from the tribe, her son Ryan has been in recovery, drug-free, for five years. At age 31, he's back in college. As we sit at the kitchen table, Brenda puts a hand on his arm. Be proud. When you hear your mom talk like that, how does it make you feel?

It makes me feel good. It's good to know that she's proud. She trusts me. It's good to know that now because there was, you know, over a decade where, yeah, right. Public health experts say it will be years before there's data showing whether this is working, whether opioid addiction and overdose deaths among the Cherokee are finally coming down. For now, what people have here is hope that this money and their efforts will finally start the healing. That was NPR's Brian Mann in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Adrian Flaherty.