WISCONSIN OPIOID CRISIS: DEATHS CUT 70 PERCENT BY NALOXONE SAVES AFTER SURGING OVER YEARS OF INCREASING EXPERT MEDICAL TREATMENT
As harm reduction against exposure of Menominee Indian Reservation residents to expert drug treatment services, a community Narcan campaign dropped deaths by 70 percent
by Clark Miller
Published December 17, 2024
The Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin has seen a sharp decline in overdoses resulting in hospitalization or death this year, after two years of record-high overdose deaths on the reservation.
So far this year, the tribe has seen a nearly 70 percent decrease in overdoses leading to hospitalizations or deaths, the Menominee announced in a recent news release. …
In 2022, the Menominee declared a state of emergency related to the impacts of drug use and addiction. That year, Menominee County, home to the tribe’s reservation, had the highest overdose death rate in all of Wisconsin.
In May, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that overdose deaths declined nationally by 3 percent from 2022 to 2023.
But the Menominee actually saw an increase from 2022 to 2023. The tribe recorded 16 overdose deaths in 2022 and 19 in 2023, according to Addie Caldwell, Director of Wellness Programs at Maehnowesekiyah Wellness Center and co-chair of the Drug Addiction Intervention Team.
“Last year, by far, was our greatest year of loss,” Caldwell said.
The tribe has only seen three overdose deaths so far this year, marking a significant change, Caldwell said.
She said the tribe declaring a state of emergency in 2022 led to a community meeting that generated ideas about how to address the opioid crisis. That meeting then led to increased cooperation between local organizations through the Drug Addiction Intervention Team to expand outreach and find gaps in existing addiction resources.
That Drug Addiction Intervention Team started distributing the life-saving opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone (Narcan), targeted to areas of high risk in the community.
Caldwell said the tribe also used data to find “hot spots,” places in the community with a disproportionate number of overdoses, and “hot times” when overdoses were happening more frequently. Using that data, she says the community was able to get recovery coaches on the ground to help make people aware that resources were available.
She said the community also worked on harm reduction, which included increasing the supply of fentanyl test strips and Narcan. Fentanyl test strips are small strips of paper that can detect the presence of fentanyl in different kinds of drugs, and Narcan is a medication that rapidly reverses the effects of an overdose.
“Narcan is critical,” Caldwell said. “I know there’s a lot of opinions out there thinking that we’re giving this stuff out, and it just is making people overdose or use more. But in all reality, it’s saving a life. It’s nothing more than that.”
Caldwell said she believes making Narcan available to “anyone and everyone” is likely the “No. 1 thing that changed within this community to help drop our overdose rates.”
As described in its 2023 annual report, the community health center had been providing expanding medication assisted treatment (MAT) with prescribed Suboxone since 2018, with opioid overdose deaths predictably mounting and triggering the urgent campaign for community outreach and Narcan provision in 2023, followed by the sharp reversal of the lethal trend and drop in opioid overdose deaths.
The tribe’s story is a condensed and dramatic version of what has been seen consistently everywhere, in cities, locales, and diverse states – the predictable, established lethal effects of American experts’ gold standard “proven” treatments fueling a worsening opioid crisis, in recent years moderated by intense, targeted emergency naloxone campaigns that serve as harm reduction, at the same time masking persistently mounting high-risk opioid use and overdose. As seen in –
All that’s missing is for major media to twist the remarkable Menominee story of community harm reduction into an intractable mystery or validation and major triumph for that lethal gold standard medical dispensing of substitute opioids.
NPR, for example, has just the right reporter for that critically important public message.
