BOZEMAN—Fentanyl is killing Montanans — overdose deaths skyrocketed 1,900% between 2017 and 2023 — but how did the drug take the country by storm, and how does it get to Montana?
Since the early 1990s, the Missouri River Drug Task Force has been operating in Montana to stem a tide of drugs that kill. Operational supervisor, Sergeant Justin Schnelbach, told Big Sky Prospector that fentanyl’s chemical ingredients originate in China, which are then assembled into consumable drugs in unregulated, underground laboratories in Mexico.
The task force was established as America’s drug landscape started to change. It covers Gallatin, Park, Madison, Sweet Grass, Broadwater, and Lewis and Clark counties. Most law enforcement agencies in those jurisdictions participate. Various drugs have faded in and out of popularity as availability and markets shift. Fentanyl, so dangerous because of its extreme potency, is ascendant today, and Montana is coping with its onslaught.
“Statistics of seizures have increased,” Schnelbach said. “To say the border is not an issue would be inaccurate. [The fentanyl] is coming from Mexico. The statistics speak for themselves.”
Fentanyl travels by any and every means available — plane, train, car, by foot — to ‘source cities’ such as Las Vegas, Spokane, Denver, and Phoenix. Typically drug traffickers based in Montana drive roundtrip to Spokane to collect fentanyl, 100 pills per bag, for distribution throughout Montana. The pills are the size of an Advil and can be easily concealed.
Fentanyl is cheap to make and nets a big profit margin. The drug may cost $0.25 per pill in southern states, but goes for $5-20 per pill in Montana, and commands a $100-$120 premium on reservations.
Fentanyl seizures and overdoses have significantly increased by volume each year, despite qualities that lend its effects to go underreported. Fentanyl is routinely cut or laced into filler substances or other recreational drugs to increase their potency or to extend the total drug supply. The result is fentanyl, when mixed with other substances, can evade statistics on the drug’s flow and effects.
A fentanyl-related death is confirmed clinically at autopsy, but the true death toll is murky, as many who die of overdoses do not undergo an autopsy.
Nevertheless, fentanyl deaths are on the rise. The Montana Attorney General’s office released this statement in May of this year:
“Fentanyl-linked deaths continue to rise in Montana. The State Crime Lab has preliminarily reported 80 overdose deaths involving fentanyl in 2023 – an increase of 1,900 percent from 2017 when there were just four. This number does not reflect the entire statewide total, as the crime lab only verifies deaths that involve an autopsy.”
The tide of killer pills shows no signs of abating. As of May 2024, “in Montana, more than 40,000 fentanyl pills seized to date; last year’s record 106,500,” according to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
The Missouri River task force deals in all drugs. Meth is still a major factor in Montana, too, Schnelbach says.
Fentanyl and Homelessness in Bozeman
“A lot of our investigations lead back to or start at the urban camping district,” an officer on the Missouri River Drug Task Force told Big Sky Prospector. A drug bust within Bozeman’s urban camping area, which court documents call a “hotbed of narcotic activity,” resulted in three arrests earlier this month.
Bozeman’s camping sparked a marathon Bozeman City Commission meeting which reviewed the outcomes associated with the city’s permission of “urban camping,” or homeless encampments. Authority to clear encampments was restored to cities in a Supreme Court decision this summer. The meeting was disrupted by a “tenant” union’s protests demanding the city remove restrictions on living in public spaces, including right of way roads, despite these encampments' increasing impact on residents and tourists — including surges of drug trafficking and other serious crimes.
Many homeless occupying “urban camping” districts come from out of state, according to both the Bozeman City Commission formal report and the Drug Task Force.
National Stakes
Border security has become the central issue of the 2024 election, with a significant majority of Americans now favoring mass deportations. But beyond housing supply, depressed wages through a glut of labor supply, and threats to security, the border has become a lightning rod with millions pouring into the United States from Central and South America, China, and the Middle East.
The border has become an issue as it pertains to the impact of drug use in America. Former President Donald Trump has made the border the central tenet of his campaign. For many Montanans, and other states hit with overdose deaths, the issue of securing the border and deterring drug trafficking are synonymous.
Dangerous Drug Culture
Fentanyl’s effects across demographics are one signpost of the drug’s danger. The CDC estimates 70% of US overdoses are linked to fentanyl. One reason is that fentanyl isn’t limited to homeless encampments and lower socio-economic groups. The drug is sometimes cut with cocaine, a much more expensive drug with less social stigma, especially around universities and among professionals.
Fentanyl’s predominance traces back to the rise of oxycontin and the Purdue Pharma scandal. The opioid market tipped toward heroin with oxycontin disappearing, but then fentanyl took over.
Schnelbach said cocaine is prevalent in the Gallatin Valley, and growing in other parts of the state. Bozeman and Big Sky lead the way in Montana’s coke use. Cocaine is extremely expensive at $2,000 per ounce compared to an ounce of meth at $100, or a tab of fentanyl for a few dollars. Fentanyl can be dangerous for higher-end drug users, because when cut with other drugs, users are often unaware.
A University of North Carolina student died last year on Duke University’s campus after using cocaine cut with fentanyl. The story was kept quiet, but in the wake of a student journalist’s investigation, her death became a signpost of the threat of fentanyl across communities. Deaths among cocaine users have gone parabolic since fentanyl’s rise.
Montana Stakes and Fentanyl’s Rise as a Political Lightning Rod
Fentanyl has become a touchstone in elections, via the border. Tim Sheehy, Republican challenger for US Senate, has been a vocal critic of the current “completely irresponsible” border policy. “All [the Biden administration] had to do on the border when they inherited it was nothing. If they did nothing, we would have a totally secure border— because that's what we had in 2020. Instead, they chose to enact these policies that are hurting every single American every single day all across the country,” Sheehy said.
At the recent Trump Rally held on MSU’s campus in August, former President Donald Trump highlighted Senator Jon Tester’s record of voting against “the wall.” The incumbent Senator’s record on the border may prove a liability with the issue, and fentanyl by proxy.
Tester voted in support of sanctuary cities and against border wall funding and against legislation to deter the migration of unaccompanied minors.
Tester can boast of the recent passage of the FEND Off Fentanyl Act. But the legislation, which declares fentanyl a national emergency, could lack the teeth to tear into supply because of U.S. border policy.
Additional funding through the legislation to respond to the escalating fentanyl epidemic is sure to help law enforcement agencies, but not at the source.
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