HEADLINES & HISTORY SINCE 1879 Goldendale, Washington
WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 2024
Vol. 145 No. 19
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Fentanyl 7: The high cost of feeling low LOU MARZELES EDITOR Today The Sentinel continues a multipart series of first-hand accounts from fentanyl users. The information is compiled from a variety of sources, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity either directly with The Sentinel or through an intermediary. To protect their privacy, names and details that could be used to identify the sources have been altered, though the information about how their experiences unfold is accurate. Here is a brief recap of key information from previous stories in this series: • A dose of fentanyl small enough to cover the tip of a pencil can cause death • The fentanyl high is brief, typically lasting two to three hours • It takes progressively more fentanyl to get stoned as the body quickly develops resistance to the drug • As users increase their fentanyl quantities, the risk of lethal overdose increases • Withdrawal from fentanyl occurs almost as soon as the high wears off • Withdrawal can be physically and emotionally unbearable, leading users to immediately seek additional doses to avoid the pain • Narcan will save a life in the event of an overdose, but it also instantly initiates painful withdrawal • Fentanyl is cheap, usually less than the cost of a candy bar—until the addiction has taken root • A steady supply of fentanyl— enough to forestall withdrawal upon the cessation of the high— ends up costing large amounts of money ~ ~ ~ ~ Amber used to keep a pillow in her backpack. She found it helpful when she paid for her fentanyl. She went through a lot of the drug, and she seldom used cash. Her pillow was to help her feel more comfortable when she paid
for it through physical means. “When I was lying there,” she shares, “I felt a little better having my own pillow. I know it’s weird, given everything else that was going on, but it helped.” Amber is a 34-year-old woman from Klickitat County who shares her story in the hope of it serving as a cautionary tale. Her name, and those of others in this story, is changed to protect her identity. She is off fentanyl now, she says through the help of her mother and sister—and God. “My mom’s faith was so powerful,” Amber states. “She was praying for me day and night. I can’t believe how she still supports me after all I did. That’s totally the grace of God.” For almost a year Amber was using fentanyl almost daily. “It’s amazing she didn’t die,” Rhonda, her mother, states. “She’d go missing for up to a couple of weeks. Then she’d show up again looking like a dazed skeleton.” Rhonda says she was always reluctant to call the police when Amber went missing for fear that incarceration might prove worse for her. She’d heard reports of fentanyl users coming down from highs in jail with no support and going into intolerable pain, as happened in the Klickitat Couty jail last year with Ivan Howtopat who took his own life in the throes of a fentanyl withdrawal. ~ ~ ~ ~ It began on a dark day, Amber says. “I mean a really gray early-winter day. It was raining. Usually I like the rain, but that day I was down, like in the cellar emotionally,” she recalls. Her dog had gone missing, and she’d had a huge fight with her boyfriend. “Looking back, those weren’t very good reasons to feel so depressed. But some days just get to you. I couldn’t handle it.” She’d heard of a place you could drive to in Yakima and get drugs pretty easily. She made the 90-minute trek and pulled into a parking lot. Almost immediately
See Fentanyl page A8
Youngster asks for School Bus Driver appreciation At Monday’s Goldendale City Council meeting, Mayor Dave Jones, with the unanimous approval of the City Council, issued a proclamation declaring Wednesday, May 8, as “School Bus Driver Appreciation Day.” Goldendale Middle School 7th grade student Thomas Snyder recommended to the mayor that a day be set aside to recognize the work of local school bus drivers. In 2017, at age 5, Thomas spearheaded another campaign to recognize school bus drivers in Lexington, Virginia, where he enlisted the help of that city’s mayor to create a School Bus Driver’s Appreciation Day. Mayor Jones immediately agreed it would be good to recognize the important work that school bus drivers
CONTRIBUTED
GOOD IDEA: Thomas Snyder speaks at Monday’s city council meeting to ask for School Bus Driver Appreciation Day.
do. Goldendale School District Superintendent Ellen Perconti will be helping coordinate with the schools and students to make sure all school bus drivers and support staff are shown just how much they are appreciated for their hard work and vigilance in helping keep children safe.
See Drivers page A8
Get your photos for graduation in The Sentinel’s annual Graduation Section is coming soon, so seniors, be sure to get your senior photos in to your school so they can get to us.
BOCC, Sheriff in full-scale adversarial mode
KLICKITAT COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
FIERY RESPONSE: Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer, shown here at a commissioners’ meeting last year, Tuesday called claims made by Board of County Commissioner Lori Zoller “all b.s.”
RODGER NICHOLS FOR THE SENTINEL
Sheriff Bob Songer amped up his complaints against two Klickitat County Commissioners at the BOCC meeting April 30. Here’s how it played out: Following a routine report on department activity (4,454 calls for service and 605 civil papers served since January 1) he thanked Posse Deputy Brian Paul for donating $60,000 for a new canine. The donation will cover the cost of the dog, training, equipment, and other expenses relating to the program. He emphasized that “not one cent” would come from the county budget for this addition to the department. He then announced his town hall meeting for Saturday, May 25, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Goldendale Grange, and that the topics would be, “The role of a county sheriff, and the pros and cons of County Commissioners Lori Zoller and Jacob Anderson closing down the Klickitat County Jail and contracting our inmates to the Northern Oregon Regional Correction facility, also known as NORCOR. By the way, it’s located in The Dalles, Oregon.” He said the meeting would start with a video that outlines the role and duties of a county sheriff, followed by a discussion of the jail issue. “In my town hall meeting, citizens attending will be allowed to verbally ask questions and make comments, without their questions or comments being
screened by a monitor or moderator,” he said, and gave out his email address as bobs@klickitat County.org and his cell number, (509) 262-1833. He also announced the Sheriff’s Department would be scheduling further town hall meetings “to reach as many citizens as possible.” He mentioned several sites, including White Salmon, Trout Lake, Glenwood, Klickitat, Dallesport, and Bickleton. Songer further suggested that, due to the strong feelings on both sides of the issue, the county hold a plebiscite on the future of the jail, offering voters four choices: 1. Make any improvements as needed and continue operation by the Sheriff’s Office. 2. Build a new jail, operated by Sheriff’s Office. 3. Contract with NORCOR in The Dalles. 4. Have the commissioners themselves take over operation of the jail. He noted that closing the jail affects more than just the jail. At the moment, he said, morale is not good among the 16 deputies who would lose their jobs and blamed that on the surprise announcement of an April 12 closure and that commissioners had already begun negotiations with the union for their severance packages. “It was all b.s.,” Songer said flatly. “I tracked it down.” He said it was true that commissioners had made inquiries at NORCOR, but there was no written contract and that NORCOR officials told him that it would be
five to six months before a contract could even be put in place. He added he had been told by two sheriffs on the NORCOR board that any arrest made in Klickitat County would have to be booked in Klickitat County and that detainees would have to be medically cleared before they could be taken to NORCOR. In that case, he said the county would have to provide a booking area, a holding cell, and staff to administer the operation and to transport prisoners. He acknowledged that the commissioners do have a serious concern: “Liability is always a concern,” he said. “It’s a big concern; but if liability drives the day, those deputies would not even crawl in their car and we would not even do a booking. You have to be concerned about liability, but you don’t run scared because of it.” After Undersheriff Carmen Knopes reported on recent activities in the department, Songer brought up the subject of inmate medical costs, saying the report of $192,000 liability with Klickitat Valley Health was incorrect, that he had been working with KVH Chief Financial Officer Lori Groves and the actual amount was $85,000, because some of the charges were for Bingen and White Salmon. “We’re all concerned with the health of the inmates, right?” he asked commissioners. “So our medical budgets were cut two years in a row. Yeah, we only received $30,000 in our medical
See County page A8