An Anchorage mom who lost her son to fentanyl wants to tell her story

Sandy Snodgrass wakes early, within the quiet East Anchorage townhouse she shares with two cats. She waits till daybreak, then makes chilly calls and fires off emails to tv stations, newspaper editors, legislative staffers and anyone else she will consider — providing to inform the story of the worst factor that’s ever occurred to her.

When folks name again, she recounts the small print of the terrible day in October when she realized her 22-year-old son Bruce had died of a fentanyl overdose.

Her reasoning is easy, although not everybody understands: “There’s nothing folks will hear to love a mom who has misplaced her little one,” she stated, with a shrug.

Snodgrass, a blunt 59-year-old licensed counselor, says she was in shock for a couple of months after her son died in October. However one thing seized her — possibly it was the relentless overdoses she saved listening to about — and now grief has alchemized into motion. She needs to inform the story of Robert Bruce Snodgrass, how an astonishingly potent artificial opioid swiftly took his life, and the way it can do the identical to anybody who makes use of road medicine. Folks appear prepared to hear. Previously week alone, she’s finished 4 media interviews. She has the ear of a U.S. senator.

“If you wish to say I’m obsessed, I’m obsessed,” stated Snodgrass, sitting on a simple chair not removed from the place she retains the blue velvet bag that holds Bruce’s ashes. Questioning what different folks consider her just isn’t excessive on her checklist.

“Bruce is useless. So I don’t actually give a s–t.”

Exploding overdose instances

Identical to the remainder of the US, Alaska is being ravaged by fentanyl.

Throughout the nation, fentanyl has grown right into a nationwide well being disaster some consultants are see because the third wave of the opioid epidemic. Deaths as a result of artificial opioid surged 55% between 2020 and 2021, driving an total spike in opioid deaths, in keeping with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In latest weeks, fentanyl deaths have dominated headlines in each nook of the nation: Two high school students in Portland inside 24 hours of one another. A 12-year-old in New Jersey. Five young people who overdosed collectively in a Colorado residence.

In Alaska, the numbers are staggering: In 2018, there have been 9 deadly fentanyl-involved overdoses within the state. By 2021, there have been 140, in keeping with preliminary knowledge from the state Division of Well being and Social Companies. That’s a greater than 15-fold improve.

Overdoses involving fentanyl accounted for about 74% of all deadly overdoses final yr.

And it’s nonetheless unfolding. Toxicology screenings from 2022 deaths haven’t been finalized, stated health worker Gary Zientek. However consultants anticipate the carnage to proceed.

“It’s gotten unhealthy,” stated Jessica Filley, an epidemiology specialist with the state Workplace of Substance Misuse and Dependancy Prevention. “We maintain listening to about unhealthy batches of methamphetamine, heroin and even capsules,” she stated.

Fentanyl will get to Alaskans in two methods: Both bought as capsules or in one other pure type, or adulterated into batches of illicit road medicine starting from counterfeit prescription pills to meth to heroin. Sellers add it to medicine as a result of it’s low cost and it produces a robust excessive. Whether or not folks know they’re consuming fentanyl or not, it could actually kill shortly. The DEA has launched a “one pill can kill” marketing campaign to warn towards it.

“It simply takes such a small quantity,” stated Michael Troster, a former DEA agent who’s now the top of the Alaska High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area coalition, a program that coordinates legislation enforcement businesses to scale back drug trafficking and manufacturing. Lower than 0.2 of a gram can kill an individual.

There are indicators that fentanyl deaths present no signal of slowing down. Previously month, six people have died and a minimum of 17 overdosed within the Mat-Su north of Anchorage from what police referred to as a “unhealthy batch” of heroin. Whereas definitive toxicology assessments will take months, fentanyl contamination is a possible issue, in keeping with Troster.

It’s not simply Alaska cities grappling with fentanyl. In January, the Metropolis of Togiak declared a public well being emergency partially over fentanyl-laced heroin that killed a minimum of one younger individual, in addition to a very lethal batch of homebrew circulating within the dry village of about 800 folks, on Bristol Bay in Western Alaska. Folks have gotten fed up with the deaths and overdoses, stated Tom Lowe, the mayor of Togiak.

Fentanyl is “like Russian roulette,” he stated.

A partnership

Snodgrass has fashioned an unlikely partnership — and friendship — with Troster. He was one of many folks Snodgrass first cold-called, with nothing to supply however her story. Since then, they’ve finished interviews in tandem in addition to behind-the-scenes coordinating with teams just like the Mat-Su Opioid Job Power.

They’re an expert odd couple: A buttoned-up 30-year profession DEA agent and a mother who admits she’d like revenge on the seller who bought her son medicine. When Snodgrass muses about her behavior of driving previous the homes of drug sellers late at evening, Troster gently sighs.

“Please don’t say that on the report,” he says.

However they work properly collectively. Her purpose is to see federal laws mandating training on fentanyl. She has been talking with the workers of U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski about that purpose. She needs folks to hearken to what Troster has been repeating: Fentanyl is totally different.

Troster needs folks to know that fentanyl has “modified the sport” with medicine. It may be in something, whether or not you realize it or not. Any prescription tablet not doled out in an expert, medical setting must be seen as suspect. In the event you maintain 5 capsules in your hand, two are in all probability adulterated with fentanyl, he stated.

“In the event you’re not getting medication from a clinician, a pharmacist, a physician, a nurse practitioner, whoever it’s, you possibly can’t belief it in any respect, ever,” he stated.

‘Alaska was Bruce’s true house’

Bruce was Sandy’s solely little one. When he was younger they lived in Southern California, exploring seashores, mountains and deserts so Bruce may do what he beloved — be outdoors. When he was a teen, they moved again to Alaska, the place Sandy grew up.

“Alaska was Bruce’s true house,” she stated.

However whereas a scholar at Service Excessive Faculty, Bruce began utilizing medicine in earnest. A longtime psychological well being clinician herself, Snodgrass thought he is perhaps higher off switching faculties. At a brand new college, he and mates sneaked away to an empty home to drink.

Vivid spots concerned time within the wilderness. He spent a cheerful summer season packing out meat for hunters at a lodge close to Talkeetna. He earned a wilderness first responder certification on a monthlong Nationwide Out of doors Management Faculty course. He beloved free solo mountain climbing. For a time, he labored on the Alaska Rock Fitness center in Anchorage.

Dependancy derailed plans. After he turned 18, he was repeatedly arrested after which broke his phrases of launch, including costs and time to his instances. Finally, when he was utilizing, he ended up tenting within the forests of Far North Bicentennial Park, homeless however with a house he may have gone to, if he’d been clear and sober.

In summer season 2021, Snodgrass felt cause for hope: Bruce stated he wished to get clear, and partially due to her data of Alaska’s substance abuse remedy system, the celebrities aligned.

Snodgrass was in a position to assist her son safe a right away mattress in a medical detox facility after which switch to the inpatient Chanlyut program, run by the Southcentral Basis. Bruce graduated, moved house together with his mother and launched into outpatient remedy.

The substance abuse remedy program gave him a mountain bike, and he discovered pleasure driving round Anchorage trails. His each day schedule revolved round intensive outpatient conferences and counseling.

Then got here the day in October when Bruce left, saying he was going for a motorcycle journey. Snodgrass knew the risks. She knew that relapse might be a part of an eventual path to long-term restoration, particularly for younger folks.

“Watch out on the market,” she instructed him.

In line with police, Bruce was discovered useless at 11:38 a.m. Oct. 28, within the Carrs car parking zone on DeBarr Street. A canine walker had observed his physique and referred to as police. The police officer who met Sandy on the location the place the physique was discovered had come from notifying a unique household about an overdose dying.

“I acknowledge I’m not alone on this, by any means,” she stated.

Just a few days later, Snodgrass drove to a gasoline station on DeBarr Street.

“So, the place’s the man that used to hang around right here?” she requested a cluster of males. She knew her son had come right here for medicine up to now. “I heard he died.”

She talked her approach in to listening to who had been promoting her son medicine. It’s exhausting to sleep with that data. Snodgrass says she isn’t about to do something unlawful. Not that she hasn’t considered it.

‘I’ll cry later’

For now, Snodgrass has determined that telling the story is what she does. As full-time as doable. She imagines that if Bruce had lived, he may need ended up working as a wilderness information. Or maturing into an individual residing fortunately off the grid someplace outdoors Talkeetna. She’ll by no means know.

As an alternative Snodgrass wakes up, makes her calls, sends her emails and places on make-up for the subsequent TV look. Make-up helps discourage crying on digicam, and that’s one factor that units her aside from among the different “fentanyl mothers” — her time period for fellow mother and father who’ve misplaced youngsters to the drug. She will often get via her story with out breaking down. It’s a automobile to get her the place she’s going: some legislation, some warning, one thing that can halt the buildup of deaths.

If a grieving mom can’t make folks hear, who can?

“I’ll cry later,” she stated.