Drugs and addiction: Bitter Pill presentation

Wednesday's Bitter Pill presentation in Montana State University-Northern's Hensler Auditorium featured a drug task force agent who spoke about the regional prevalence of illegal prescription drug use and distribution and a local judge who discussed how people get caught in a cycle of drug abuse and legal troubles.

Since 2012, C.J. Reichelt has been with the Tri-Agency Safe Trails Task Force, a drug task force made of officers from the police department, the sheriff's office and the FBI. Justice of the Peace Judge Audrey Barger has served on the bench in Hill County since 2010.

Reichelt helps catch sellers and users, Barger tries to help them get rehabilitated through Drug Treatment Court.

Reichelt, part of the task force that is made up of five agents in two offices  -  Havre and Glasgow - and covers more than 21,000 miles, said methamphetamine and illegal use and distribution of prescription drugs is what he sees most often. Hydrocodone and oxycodone are the most commonly abused prescription drugs in the area, he said.

Teens, he said, abuse prescription drugs because they think it's legal, because they're easier to get than illicit drugs and because they think prescription drugs are safe because they come from a pharmacy.

One of the most common ways prescription drugs are obtained is from people who have had it prescribed to them, he said. Reichelt said a typical scenario could be a grandson and his friends coming over to their grandparent's home, finding the drugs in the cabinet or on a table, and taking them. Another common way people get prescription illegally meds is by "doctor shopping," Reichelt said.

Doctors are legally obligated to check a pill registry, which keeps track of those who have pills prescribed. But, he said, people can find ways around that by visiting multiple doctors under different names, or, sometimes, doctors prescribe without checking the pill registry.

Someone could get pills prescribed in Havre, then in Rocky Boy, and more in Fort Belknap, and end up with three months of pills for one month, Reichelt said. Then, usually, people who do that sell the pills, which go for "good money," he said, citing up to $60 as the going price for a pill. Reichelt said it is illegal to not notify doctors if pills have been prescribed by another doctor.

Reichelt showed a graph that said, "Between 2000 and 2015, 693 deaths in Montana were attributed to opioid poisoning."

There are several side effects aside from death when prescription meds are abused or sold, he added. For the users, long term side effects include mood disorders, heart and liver failure, loss of memory, inability to concentrate and addictions to medication. Crimes connected to illegally having or using prescription meds also include felony and misdemeanor convictions and parole or prison time, he said.

As for solutions, Reichelt said, pills should be securely stored by legal users, unused medication should be destroyed or dropped off at the police department, and people should report missing pills or suspected drug deals.

Barger's presentation focused on understanding addiction.

"Addiction comes from the oldest part of the brain that exists," she said. "That part of the brain you don't have a lot of control over."

Her presentation was based on a domestic violence presentation called "In Her Shoes." She called seven volunteers to the front of the classroom and had them read different profiles off a card meant to illustrate that addiction is a problem that can effect people of all races, all socioeconomic levels, all ethnicities and all backgrounds.

The profiles depicted people who had grown up with substance abuse in their household; people who had incurred sexual, physical or other kind of trauma; people who had never had a substance issue but as professionals under intense stress took to drugs or alcohol; people who began using to help deal with relational strain; or people with post traumatic stress disorder. Many of the profiles were those of people dealing with a combination of the profiles.

"These are real people I know. These are real people I work with," she said. "And they're in this community. People don't realize how severe the problem is."

She said the offenses described in the profiles didn't necessarily align with the direct people, but the people and the offenses were real.

Barger's goal was to show that people get sucked in by drug and alcohol addiction in different ways, but usually there's a common thread of early trauma and early use, sexual or physical abuse, or mental health diagnosis. A common perpetuator, she added, is the unwillingness to talk about the trauma and abuse associated with substance issues, usually because of shame.

"Addiction is a parasite," she said. "The people are the host. And the goal of the parasite is to kill."