Top 20 on Missoulian.com for 2016
A white supremacist website called The Daily Stormer has posted a call to "TAKE ACTION" against Jewish people in Whitefish, providing personal contact information and urging a "troll storm" against them.
The story claims the "vicious, evil race" has harmed the Whitefish business of Richard Spencer's mother. It quotes a story from the British newspaper Daily Mail that said Sherry Spencer "said she is being forced to sell a building she owns in the small town because residents are rebelling against her son."
The site posted phone numbers, email addresses, and Twitter handles for the Whitefish residents it alleges are harassing Sherry Spencer, along with a disclaimer that it opposes violence.
Richard Spencer is president and director of the National Policy Institute, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as a hate group. The institute is "dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world."
Spencer said Friday he's thinking about running for the U.S. House seat that would be vacated if U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana is confirmed as President-elect Donald Trump's choice to head the Department of Interior. (See related story.)
The Daily Stormer website has a tab called "Jewish Problem." It asks for donations from readers with a plea: "These bastards are always at our throats."
The piece by Andrew Anglin – described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a "a prolific Internet troll" – about Whitefish uses a vulgar term to describe Jews, and also uses slurs against other minorities on its site. Its "call for action" in Whitefish says, "So then, let's hit em up. Are y’all ready for an old fashioned Troll Storm?"
Some of those targeted by Thursday's post are involved in Love Lives Here, a group that fights discrimination – racial, ethnic, religious and gender – in the Flathead. It was founded in 2009 in response to screenings of pro-Hitler films by a white separatist group called Kalispell Pioneer Little Europe. Daily Stormer calls Love Lives Here a "Jew terrorist group."
Earlier this month, Whitefish Mayor John Muhlfeld signed a proclamation that declared, among other things, "The City of Whitefish repudiates the ideas and ideology of the white nationalist and so called alt-right as a direct affront to our community's core values and principles."
"Love Lives Here has never promoted the idea of a protest of a boycott of a building," Will Randall, the organization's chairman, said Friday. One of the people targeted by the Daily Stormer post "is a beloved member of our community who entered into this conversation trying to help."
The Stormer posted pictures of several Whitefish residents, including a child, with a yellow Star of David with the word "Jude" – German for Jew – added to each photo. During World War II, Jews in Germany and Nazi-occupied territories were forced to wear such stars on their clothing.
Randall said that his research into neo-Nazi groups has accustomed him to such images.
"But when your own personal friends are affected, it's gut-wrenching," he said. "These are some of the best people around, and to see them attacked because they're Jewish or have a Jewish-sounding name is disgusting."
BILLINGS – Last week in Yellowstone National Park a mother black bear and two cubs ambled down a greening hillside along the road to Tower Falls.
Instantly a line of cars and photographers swooped in creating what's known in Yellowstone as a bear jam. Before a ranger could arrive to direct traffic and keep people back, I snapped these photos with a long lens of a woman getting way too close for comfort to the mama bear and cubs. The woman finally stepped back – either after getting her shot or because she was urged to move by a few people in the gathering crowd.
No animal is more dangerous than a mother who feels its offspring may be in danger. The risk the woman took is not only illegal in Yellowstone – tourists are required to stay 100 yards from bears and wolves – but also just plain ignorant.
Common sense seems to flee people's minds incredibly quickly when they see an animal, bird or even a line of cars pulled to the side of the road in Yellowstone National Park.
Already this spring Yellowstone has been the site of several examples of people behaving badly. One tourist picked up a bison calf and gave it a ride in their car to the ranger station. A woman was filmed trying to pet a bison. One woman was struck by a vehicle and died after trying to cross a road to take photos of a bald eagle. A Canadian film crew illegally walked onto a hot springs feature, filming the entire trip. And the peak park visitor season hasn't even arrived yet.
If last week's bear jam is any indication, no matter how much information park managers publish or broadcast about the illegality of such incidents, folks either aren't getting the message or just don't care about the rules meant to ensure their safety, as well as to protect wildlife and the park workers called to the scene of such incidents.
Last week when the woman photographer boldly advanced across the narrow road, I thought for a second that I would witness a bear attack. Luckily the mama bear showed more sense than the woman and moved away from the crowd and up the hill, along with its cubs.
Yet the incident makes many regular park visitors and staff wonder: What is going to happen next? Or maybe less politely: How stupid can tourists be? No wonder some park workers refer to visitors as "tourons," a combination of the words tourist and moron. Last summer it was bison gorings and people falling from cliffs that made headlines. This year is anyone's guess.
With a busy tourism season forecast as the Park Service celebrates its 100th birthday, chances are it won't be too long before another Yellowstone visitor behaves badly. Let's hope it's not a fatal mistake.
HAMILTON – A minimum of 500 homes are under orders to evacuate due to a fast-moving fire that already had claimed a number of structures as it spread across 2,000 acres southwest of Hamilton Sunday.
“We’re just trying to get people out of the way now,” said Bitterroot National Forest spokesman Tod McKay. “We can rebuild homes. We need to get people out of this area.”
The fire started about one mile up Roaring Lion Road about a mile from a national forest trailhead.
“It was first noticed probably at about 2 p.m. and by a quarter to 3 it was encroaching on homes,” said Ravalli County Sheriff Chris Hoffman. “We skipped stage one evacuations and went immediately to stage two, which is ‘get out of here.’”
An estimated 200 homes were directly threatened by the fire Sunday night. Firefighters said they have confirmation that buildings have burned in the Judd Creek area but won't have a total number of buildings lost until Monday.
Hamilton Fire Chief Brad Mohn said the fire has been so intense that volunteer firefighters have been forced to fall back several times.
“We have had limited opportunities to put out spot fires near homes, but the conditions are very volatile,” Mohn said. “It’s not safe to directly attack the fire. There are several hundred structures threatened.''
At 6 p.m., Hoffman said he had received verification of structures on fire in the Judd Creek area but won't have a specific number of buildings destroyed until Monday.
“We are asking for people to cooperate,” he said. “We can’t let people back up there…this is a big area. If you pull the radar, you’ll see the plume is huge. We’ve got fairly steady high winds up in the canyons and this fire has just launched.”
The Red Cross has set up two shelters for evacuees at the First Baptist Church at Lewis and Cooper lanes and at The River Church at 354 Cooper Lane in Hamilton. Gates are open on the Ravalli County Fairgrounds for livestock. ABC Acres in Hamilton is also accepting livestock displaced from the fire.
Retired West Fork District Ranger Dave Campbell’s first hint that something was wrong came when the sun turned red Sunday afternoon while he was taking a break from his annual chore of stacking firewood “far away from the house.”
Campbell knew the area where the fire was burning had a heavy fuel load. When he could see the flames, he noticed they were whirling.
“You could tell there was very unstable air,” he said. “When you see those fire whirls, you know it’s going to be a very difficult fire to fight.”
Campbell’s home is surrounded by defensible space. He planned to stay and sprinkle his home, but the power went out. “I didn’t have a choice (about leaving) at that point,” he said. “The hardest part about this is I know that some of my neighbors have lost their homes. I might have too.”
Hoffman said the fire apparently started near the bottom of the drainage and spread immediately, driven by gusting winds.
“At this point, we don’t know how it started,” he said. “Obviously, we have had no lightning. It took off too hard and too fast for anyone to investigate that at this point.”
McKay said he's been in the Bitterroot for seven seasons and has "never seen a fire take off and burn so quick.''
"It’s a combination of terrain and fuels and the winds we have had today'' he said. "The fire guys are up against it. Today they are really being put to the test.”
The speed meant the initial attack team had no chance of catching up.
“By the first call, it was already ripping,” McKay said. “It got on the face with some wind behind it and then there were 200-foot-flame lengths with fire crowning in the trees all way up the face. It was incredible.”
A Type 1 team is expected to take over management of the firefighting effort Monday.
***
The weather will offer little relief. Although winds are expected to calm on Monday, the National Weather Service has issued a fire weather watch for the Bitterroot and West and East Lolo districts Tuesday that predicts westerly winds gusting as high as 45 mph in the afternoon and evening. Humidity will remain low, at 10 to 15 percent for lower elevations and 17 to 22 percent at high elevations.
“This is a bad one,” McKay said. “We already have put every resource that we have on the fire and everything that we can order, we’ve ordered.”
The last estimate put the fire at 1,000 acres, but McKay said it’s hard to know for sure due to the amount of smoke being generated by the blaze.
Hoffman said there have been a couple of ambulance calls, with one for a person needing CPR in the Owens Creek area.
Hoffman said the community has had an “incredibly good response” from valley volunteer fire departments and law enforcement from as far away as Missoula.
A portion of Highway 93 south of Hamilton has been closed to traffic.
Hoffman said people living near the fire need to be prepared.
“Evacuation notices are changing by the minute as this fire spreads,” he said.
***
The Ravalli County Sheriff's Office has put in place Stage 2 evacuations for the west side of Highway 93 from Owings Creek to Hayes Creek. That includes all of Roaring Lion Road, Lupine Ridge Trail, 2 Horse Lane, Highland Drive, North Gold Creek Loop, Owings Creek south to Roaring Lion Road, and Gold Creek Loop to Camas Creek Loop.
Stage 1 notifications were added from Owings Creek to Westside Road west of Wyant Lane. Stage 1 alerts homeowners that there is a high probability that they may need to evacuate.
At 6:30 p.m. Sunday, the Stage 1 alert was expanded to include both sides of Lost Horse Road.
"It's horrible," said Pamela Caughey, a Hamilton artist who lives on Roaring Lion Road. She had evacuated and was heading toward Highway 93 Sunday afternoon.
By Sunday night, she had posted on Facebook: "Our house and many others now just ashes, but we are thankful for our lives and how helpful and kind all have been.''
She estimated in an interview Sunday afteroon that there are about 50 homes along the four miles of Roaring Lion Road.
"When a fire gets going, it's just going to go," Caughey said. "We could see it coming so fast."
“This is the one we didn’t want to happen,” said Bitterroot National Forest public affairs officer Tod McKay. “We’ve got all our resources on it.”
As of Sunday night, there were three Hot Shot crews, two engine crews from Darby and a hand crew from Sula already working on the fire. They were supported by five helicopters and one heavy air tanker that made multiple retardant drops.
McKay said plans called for local volunteer firefighters to patrol through the night in an effort to protect as many homes as possible.
The Montana Department of Environmental Quality reported late Sunday afternoon that smoke from the fire was lifting above Hamilton and that air quality was good.
HELENA (AP) — The Montana Supreme Court says citizens have a right to trial by jury before the state can take private property in civil forfeiture cases, a ruling that bolsters a law that state legislators passed last year to limit police seizures.
Tuesday's unanimous ruling by the high court puts Montana in line with most other states that have upheld jury trials in civil forfeiture proceedings.
"After consideration of both American and English common law, federal jurisprudence and decisions from our sister states ... we join the majority of states and federal courts and conclude that there is a right to trial by jury," Justice Laurie McKinnon wrote in the opinion.
Law enforcement officials can seize land, money and other assets if they can show probable cause that the property was used in illegal activity. Critics such as the ACLU have said it allows police to profit from crime.
Civil forfeiture proceedings are filed against the property itself and had not required criminal charges against the property's owner until the Montana Legislature changed the law in 2015. Now, law enforcement officials are barred from taking any personal property before the owner is convicted of a crime.
The pre-2015 law also required forfeiture hearings of property used in drug manufacturing to be held without a jury. The new law strikes that requirement, but it does not expressly grant the right of a trial by jury.
The Montana Department of Justice and the ACLU of Montana declined to comment on the ruling.
The decision orders a jury trial for a Jefferson County man whose land was seized after authorities found more than 300 marijuana plants while investigating an animal-cruelty case in 2011.
Mike Chilinski was convicted in federal court of manufacturing marijuana, but he did not face state drug charges. However, Jefferson County officials sought the forfeiture of Chilinski's property in state court in 2013.
The judge turned the property over to the state after denying Chilinski's request for a trial by jury. The judge in the case cited the law that existed at the time that said proceedings are to be held without a jury.
The high court ruled that law, which has been supplanted by the 2015 law, was unconstitutional.
HAMILTON – Three 18-year-old Hamilton men and a 16-year-old female juvenile face felony and misdemeanor negligent arson charges for allegedly starting this summer’s Roaring Lion fire, which destroyed 16 homes and cost $11 million to fight.
The four built a campfire four days before the fire sprang to life on a small bluff just off Roaring Lion Creek.
Investigators believe the campfire, which was not fully extinguished, crept through pine needles, twigs and duff before a cold front swept through the area and sent the flames into the canopy to create a blaze that would eventually burn more than 13 square miles.
Tyler Landon Johnson, Steven Banks, Cody William Knez and the 16-year-old girl will appear in Ravalli County Justice Court on Nov. 1. Each will face one felony and one misdemeanor count of negligent arson.
Government agencies and insurance companies also could seek restitution for firefighting costs and lost property if the four are found guilty of causing the fire.
The origin of the Roaring Lion fire was marked 15 minutes after the first reports of smoke were received on July 31 by the Ravalli County Dispatch, according to an affidavit filed in the case.
The initial report was filed at 2:20 p.m. By 2:35 p.m., a Forest Service helicopter pilot flew over what was then a one-acre blaze and marked its origin with a GPS.
By 2:57 p.m., the helicopter pilot reported the fire had spread to 20 acres. At 3:23 p.m. – 48 minutes after his initial observation – the pilot said the fire had grown to between 400 and 500 acres. By that time, the fire was sending out embers a quarter-mile ahead of the flames, which were igniting spot fires that grew to five acres within seven minutes.
Fire investigators were able to fly over the area where the fire started on Aug. 2, which was about one mile west of the Roaring Lion Trailhead. Near that area, investigators saw what appeared to be a campfire ring and other “evidence of human presence,” principally trash that had been left behind.
Immediately following the fire, Ravalli County Undersheriff Steve Holton said investigators were inundated with potential leads from the public. All of those took time to fully consider.
“There was a lot of information for investigators to sift through,” said Ravalli County Attorney Bill Fulbright. “A lot of those leads simply didn’t pan out. It seemed like everyone in the county had an opinion.”
The four being charged told investigators they had camped overnight at the location of the fire pit on the afternoon and evening of Wednesday, July 27, according to the affidavit.
They dug a hole in a previously unburned spot and placed rocks around its edge to create the pit.
After the fire was burning in it, the juvenile took a photo and posted it on Instagram, with the caption: “Camping is cooler when you do it with the people you love.”
A civilian criminal investigator with the sheriff’s office later matched that photo with a post-fire photo of the scene. Holton said she looked at hundreds of pictures before making that match.
“If our detective who took that photo was just 20 yards to the right, it would have matched up perfectly,” Holton said. “It was a good call by our investigator and a very thorough observation.”
During the interviews, each of the four said efforts were made to extinguish the campfire, the affidavit said. Those included claims that creek water, drinking water and dirt were put on the fire at various times.
Johnson also claimed to have “felt” the fire in the morning to see if the heat was gone.
Investigators determined the campfire pit had been dug about a foot deep into native combustible material. The investigators were also able to determine the campfire was the specific origin of the Roaring Lion fire.
The Forest Service incident report said the fire crept east out of the campfire ring in a low intensity burn that could have lasted several hours or days before it was exposed to wind and a continuous forest with ladder fuels that allowed it to transition into the forest canopy.
Investigators determined that the fire ring couldn’t have been used after the four left the site on July 28th because various items of trash left by the group were found inside the fire ring. Those items included water, pop and tea bottles, packaging for hot dogs and sausage, a partially burned firecracker-type firework, and a partially smoked cigar. Also found in the surrounding area were unfired .22 caliber shells, an unexploded firecracker and packaging from Jackpot-brand Cigarillos.
The items were consistent with reported purchases made by the group and confirmed on surveillance video and various store receipts.
"It was just negligence," Holton said. "Best practices for extinguishing a fire weren't followed."
HAMILTON – The Roaring Lion fire has claimed one life and 14 homes southwest of Hamilton.
Ravalli County Sheriff Chris Hoffman said conditions had improved enough Monday night to let people back into the burned area.
Bruce Lee Robinson, 64, died of cardiac arrest during the mandatory evacuation Sunday from the fast-moving fire.
The Ravalli County Sheriff’s Office confirmed late Monday that at least 14 homes have been destroyed. Specific addresses were being withheld until the owners could be notified.
Without the efforts of firefighters throughout the night, Hamilton Fire Chief Brad Mohn said there would have been more homes burned.
“They were out there all night long,” Mohn said. “There were a lot of spot fires. They definitely saved some homes by putting out fires burning around them.”
But the worst may be yet to come. Wind gusts topping 50 mph are expected on mountain tops Tuesday night.
Bitterroot National Forest Fire Management Officer Mark Wilson said the fire was initially reported at about 2:20 p.m. Sunday.
“It was visible to pretty much everyone,” Wilson said.
A helicopter was immediately launched from the Hamilton airport and firefighters from the Hamilton Volunteer Fire Department and a Forest Service engine from Darby were dispatched.
“When our helicopter arrived on the scene 10 minutes later, the pilot reported the fire at about an acre in size and growing,” Wilson said. “It went from a spot to an acre in a matter of minutes.”
Five minutes later, the helicopter pilot dropped the first bucket of water on the blaze.
“It had already doubled in size,” Wilson said. “For every bucket he dropped, he said the fire doubled in size initially. About this time, the volunteers and our engine crew realized this was not something that they could put out. They started focusing their efforts on evacuating people.”
The fire appears to have started about mile up the trail near the bottom of the canyon.
“Within the first 30 minutes, it had spotted on both sides of the canyon and started moving on both sides,” Wilson said. “Wind gusts were in the 20 to 30 mph range. It was burning in really heavy fuels.”
Firefighters on the scene reported seeing embers falling all around them.
“I don’t think it took a lot of discussion about the need to begin evacuating people,” Wilson said. “They knew they needed to get out of there themselves.”
The first responders included contingents from Hamilton Volunteer Fire, Bitterroot Forest and the Ravalli County Sheriff’s office.
“On the positive side, everyone was there and they responded together,” Wilson said. “All the right folks were there to make it happen really quickly.”
The next few days will be extremely challenging for firefighters.
“The weather forecast is calling for strong winds and low relative humidity as a dry cold front moves through,” Wilson said. “We’re getting to the upper end of the high fire danger at this point. We have had some extremely low relative humidity levels in the range of 9 percent. The heavy fuels are really dry.”
Bitterroot National Forest spokesman Tod McKay said firefighters built a containment line along the eastern edge of the fire Sunday night and Monday morning.
“We have about 150 boots on the ground at this point,” he said Monday morning. “I think the cool temperatures last night really helped them. … It sounds like they did some really great work.”
The fire has burned an estimated 3,500 acres.
The management of the fire will transition over to a Type 1 team, used for the most serious fires.
“There will be a big effort today to bring the new team up to speed,” McKay said. “The biggest issue that they will face early on is a weather forecast that includes a fire weather warning. There are 35 to 40 mph winds predicted Tuesday.” (See related story.)
A blanket of smoke covered the fire Monday morning, which made it difficult to launch any air resources. Wilson said two helicopters did manage to make water drops Monday afternoon.
The fire burned through a portion of the national forest lands that were set to be thinned in the next year as part of the Bitterroot Forest’s Westside Project.
“This whole area between Roaring Lion and Lost Horse hasn’t burned in a long, long time,” McKay said. “That heavy fuel load resulted in the inferno that we saw yesterday (Sunday). Once it started, there was no stopping it.”
“Everything is pretty calm right now,” he said at about 9:30 a.m. “Thankfully, there is no wind. The fire crews that are here look pretty tired.”
There haven’t been any changes to evacuation orders from Sunday.
The Red Cross has set up two shelters for evacuees in Hamilton at The River Church at 354 Cooper Lane.
“Ice Road Truckers” star Darrell Ward was one of two people killed in Sunday’s plane crash near the Rock Creek exit on Interstate 90.
The Missoula County Sheriff’s Office identified the victims as Ward, 52, from Deer Lodge, and the pilot, Mark Melotz, 56, of Arlee.
“It is with great sadness to report we have lost our Montana Legend at the young age of 52,” said a release posted Monday morning on Ward’s Facebook page.
“Darrell Ward had just left The Great American Truck Show in Dallas, Texas where he enjoyed meeting numerous fans and friends and was heading to Missoula to begin filming a pilot for his new documentary style show involving the recovery of plane wrecks when he and his co-pilot crashed and lost their lives,” it said.
The Cessna 182-D crashed on the edge of interstate as it appeared to be attempting to land at the Rock Creek Airport south of Clinton.
Missoula County Sheriff’s Department Patrol Captain Bill Burt said witnesses said the plane appeared to be attempting to land at the south end of the runway.
“Something went drastically wrong,’’ he said. “The plane was trying to climb and appeared to have stalled.’’
The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the incident.
The news release on Ward’s Facebook page said he’d just gotten the news that “Ice Road Truckers” would continue for an 11th season, to begin filming in the winter of 2017.
“When Darrell wasn’t hitting the Ice Roads he would be back in Montana doing what Darrel loved best as a log hauler and occasionally helped local authorities fight forest fires,” it said.
Watch Missoulian.com for updates
CLINTON – Two people died Sunday afternoon when a single-engine plane crashed on the edge of Interstate 90 as it appeared to be attempting to land at the Rock Creek Airport south of Clinton.
Missoula County Sheriff’s Department Patrol Captain Bill Burt said witnesses said the plane appeared to be attempting to land at the south end of the runway.
“Something went drastically wrong,’’ he said. “The plane was trying to climb and appeared to have stalled.’’
Witnesses told the sheriff's office the pilot appeared to try to pull up but flew through a tall stand of aspen trees and “the first impact was through these trees," Burt said.
The pilot did not file a flight plan.
“As best we know,’’ Burt said, “it was a trip from Missoula to that airstrip to visit some friends.’’
The plane was registered to a Ronan resident. The sheriff’s office is still trying to contact family members of the two passengers, whom they did not identify.
The tail of the Cessna 182-D was intact, lying on the edge of the I-90 shoulder. The front portion of the plane was destroyed and the crash ignited a grass fire that the Clinton Rural Fire Department put out.
Both passengers died at the scene, Burt said.
The right lane of eastbound I-90 was shut down for several hours Sunday afternoon to keep traffic and onlookers away from the scene. Burt said the National Transportation Safety Board is expected to arrive Monday to complete an investigation into the crash.
A massive spike in insulin prices is causing a health crisis for millions of diabetes patients who depend on the lifesaving drug, doctors say.
Now, after years of rapid increases having nothing to do with available supply and not matched elsewhere in the world, those in the U.S. insulin supply chain are blaming one another.
Tens of thousands of medical professionals are engaged in an intricate therapeutic ballet performed to protect the health, limbs and lives of the almost 30 million people in the U.S. suffering from diabetes.
But their efforts have been dramatically complicated by the soaring increase in the cost of insulin. They find themselves balancing the cost of the essential medication and their patients’ ability to pay.
“The manipulation of insulin cost is a medical crisis in Montana and everywhere else in this country,” said Dr. Justen Rudolph, a diabetes specialist at St. Vincent Healthcare in Billings. “My patients having trouble with their insulin availability range from teenagers to a 90-year-old man, and there’s not a day that goes by when I’m not talking to a patient about the cost of their insulin.
“They try to spread out the insulin they have to make do, and that’s not how you can control diabetes,” said Rudolph.
This hit-or-miss medicating concerns many practitioners.
“Precision is needed to ensure the patient is getting the best type of insulin for their specific condition, in the right doses, at the right time to achieve the greatest benefit,” said Dr. Irl Hirsch, professor of medicine in the Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition at the University of Washington in Seattle.
State statistics and those of the American Diabetes Association show that 65,000 to 70,000 people have been diagnosed with diabetes in Montana, and another approximately 26,000 are believed to have the disease but have not been officially diagnosed.
In Missoula, Certified Diabetes Educator Carla Cox of the Providence Medical Group cautioned that switching to other forms of insulin “can present a greater risk because it is less like the action of insulin produced by the pancreas.”
Prices soaring
From 2011 to 2013 the wholesale price of insulin went up by as much as 62 percent. From 2013 to 2015 the price jumped again, from a low of 33 percent to as much as 107 percent, said Dr. Mayer Davidson, professor of medicine at the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, who has carefully tracked the rapid and repeated increases.
“This borders on the unbelievable,” Davidson said, citing an extremely concentrated insulin which “in 2001 had the wholesale price of $45. By last year, the cost had skyrocketed to $1,447” for the same monthly supply.
Susan Pierce, a diabetes educator at Philadelphia’s Chestnut Hill Hospital, said she’s seeing similar increases, with her patients reporting that the cost of their insulin is doubling, tripling or worse.
“People who paid $200 or less are now getting bills of $400, $500 and even more for the same amount of insulin. Meanwhile, most insurance is paying less for medications and the required co-pays are higher, so it is a double whammy that prevents the patient from getting the insulin to stay alive,” said Pierce.
The medical community is concerned about patients who can’t afford their insulin, “so what they have to do is they ration it,’’ said Davidson, who has been heralded for his creation of programs to get quality diabetes treatment to underserved communities.
“They take it only three or four times a week instead of every day, in order to make it stretch, and that’s dangerous,’’ he said.
Diabetes specialists attack their patient’s increase or decrease of blood sugars with the finesse of a commander plotting how to use limited troops and supplies in a continuing battle.
Patients and their practitioners live in a world where they must select and prescribe insulin which either institutes immediate changes in glucose or blood-sugar levels, or is long-lasting and doles out the vital medication over hours.
“We are not talking about concierge medicine, or just fine-tuning insulin therapy or something that a patent can live without. We’re talking about survival. Don’t let anyone sugarcoat it,” warns Hirsch.
'As much as her mortgage'
The effects of diabetes are enormous. The disease is a leading cause of blindness, strokes, kidney failure, heart attacks, nerve pain and amputation of the feet and legs.
Hirsch and many of his colleagues are not subtle when they describe what “price gouging of a medication required for survival” is doing to their patients.
“I had a patient tell me her insulin bill is suddenly costing her as much as her mortgage,” Hirsch said.
Others tell similar stories.
Dr. Claresa Levetan, chief of endocrinology at Chestnut Hill Hospital, said “just about 100 percent of them are having problems affording the higher cost of insulin.
“I see people every day in the hospital because they can’t get their required doses of insulin. Many are in the ICU with what is called diabetic ketoacidosis, a life-threatening condition. This lack of insulin brings the patients to a critical juncture, where they will become extraordinarily sick, go into a coma and could ultimately die.
“I have patients who tell me that they have to make a decision between food and insulin, and their rent and insulin.
“I mean, seriously, food, rent or insulin,’’ she said.
Where prices get hiked
Pricing of insulin, as with other medications, is controlled by the manufacturers, the insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers – the middlemen who negotiate the prices that the insurance companies pay.
“Both the pharma company and the pharmacy benefit managers jack up the cost,” said Hirsch, a former editor-in-chief of the journal Clinical Diabetes, published by the American Diabetes Association.
“We don’t know what the benefit manager is paying for the insulin from the pharma company. It’s backroom deals,’’ Hirsch said. “You can call them rebates, you can call them kickbacks, you can call them bribes, but those are secret deals on which we don’t have the details.”
Pharmacy trade associations are pushing congressional committees and state regulators to investigate the pricing practices of these powerful benefit administrators. Of significant concern is a “clawback fee” that the benefit controllers demand the pharmacies impose on patients on top of their copays.
Most professionals on the front lines blame the snowballing costs on the almost complete lack of regulation of pharmacy benefit managers.
“But the companies say, 'No, no, no. It’s not us,’ ” said educator Pierce.
“You may not be able to prove who’s behind the price rigging, but remember these prices are not an issue in Canada or in Europe or other countries where the governments keep the drug makers from going wild. It’s only in America.”
Nevertheless, some diabetes experts say the pharmacy industry should not be tarred with the same critical brush.
“Think of all the good things they actually do,” said Cox in Missoula, and ticked off programs for many low-income, uninsured people, as well as the industry’s support of children at diabetes camps and professional conferences.
Drug makers blamed
Three major pharmacy benefit companies were asked to comment on the insulin price increase. Only one, Express Scripts, the largest benefit manager in the U.S., replied.
The cost of insulin is high for patients because “drug makers continue to increase prices significantly each year, and there is no generic insulin available on the market,” said Jennifer Leone Luddy, Express Scripts spokesperson, who added that her company’s mission is “to keep prescription medication affordable and accessible.”
She described a major effort “to ensure patients get the right medication, are using and achieve the best results from their medication.”
The company seeks the most cost-effective medications, she said, but added that Express Scripts does not establish the price a patient pays for any medication, and its clients – employers, health plans and government agencies – decide how much will be paid by a patient.
In Gainesville, Texas, Jerry Meece, a clinical pharmacist and certified diabetes educator, said he spends far too much time trying to figure out what patients can afford versus what meds are most appropriate for them.
“These patients are desperate. They do without their insulin, skip doses, lower their prescribed dose to stretch out the insulin they have, and end up in the emergency room or ICU with long-term complications such as kidney failure, leg amputations or vision problems,” Meece said.
Even some patients who can afford the higher prices are endangered because the benefit managers are playing musical chairs with the different brands of insulin they authorize, some doctors said.
“I’m being told to make patients switch their insulin for no good reason except to make somebody more money,” said Dr. Loren Wissner Greene of New York University’s Langone Medical Center.
Greene, an NYU clinical professor of medicine, worries that her patients are confused by the flip-flopping.
“I just barely taught them that the orange pen is the fast-acting insulin and is to be taken with meals and the gray one is the slow-acting insulin to take at night. Now, suddenly, I have to switch them to a different brand to keep the pharmacy game-players happy,” she said.
“Big business wins again and the patients lose.”
Three pharmaceutical companies control almost all the world’s supply of insulin.
In addition to Eli Lilly, headquartered in Indianapolis, there is the Danish company Novo Nordisk, which says it makes half the insulin used by diabetics around the world, and the French company Sanofi, which says it has 18 percent of the market.
All three companies were asked why people buying their insulin were suddenly paying significantly more. Novo Nordisk and Sanofi did not respond to the question.
Lilly said it could not speculate on why individual costs went up.
“Lilly does not set the final price a patient pays for our medicines. Wholesalers and pharmacies ultimately price the product at retail,” said communication manager Julie Herrick Williams.
“The patient’s insurer, the type of plan and the individual pharmacy all play a role in the price,’’ she said. “Changes to the U.S. healthcare system are the primary driver for increased insulin cost for consumers. With the adoption of cost-sharing plans, like high-deductible health plans, more direct costs are shifting to the people who need treatments.”
Insulin production earns pharmaceutical companies tens of billions of dollars. The three pharmaceutical giants made an estimated $12 billion to $14 billion in profits from the sale of insulin last year, according to preliminary figures gathered by industry watchdogs.
Insulin first hit the market in 1920 when three Canadian scientists donated the patent for their life-saving discovery to the University of Toronto for either one Canadian dollar, or free – accounts differ.
Almost immediately, the university gave pharmaceutical companies, including Eli Lilly, license to produce insulin without payment to the school or the scientists, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for its creation. The magical concoction – extracted from the pancreases of pigs and cows – was distributed almost worldwide within months. Since there was no pharmaceutical treatment at the time, only rigid and unhealthy diets, countless lives were saved.
Eli Lilly’s corporate history reports that it took more than 4,000 pounds of animal pancreases to produce a cup – 8 ounces – of insulin. Each year the company used organs from 60 million animals to produce enough insulin for U.S. diabetics.
Lilly looked for a better way to produce the vital medication, and in 1978, in a landmark in genetic engineering, Genentech came up with the answer. Genentech’s scientists cloned a synthetic insulin from a human insulin gene and a benign strain of the food-poisoning bacteria E. coli. It was the first laboratory synthesizing of DNA that resulted in a much-needed medication, and animal-based insulin was on its way out.
Physicians are insisting that a less-expensive alternative has to be found, and questioning why a medicine nearing its 100th birthday is still so expensive.
Hirsch and his colleagues are lobbying hard to end the price gouging.
“The government is going to have to get involved and it’s going to get ugly,” said Hirsch, who has lived with the disease since his youth. He was diagnosed with diabetes when he was 6, and his younger brother was told he had the disease when he was 15.
“The well-being of our diabetes patients must come before the profit-driven games being played over the price of the clear liquid that keeps them alive,” he said.
Nearly a month after Big Sky High School students were subjected to a racial epithet by a substitute teacher, a student's family is frustrated by the ongoing silence surrounding the incident.
The morning of Tuesday, Nov. 22, students in a Big Sky sophomore English class had a substitute teacher for the day. Cipriano "CP" Gutierrez, 15, said their regular teacher had written on the board that the class was to do any work they had.
But Gutierrez said the substitute, a white man, began talking to the class about Star Wars, "and how it related to white supremacy and the KKK." He reportedly told the class they didn't have to talk about it if they didn't want to, so Gutierrez and his cousin, Manny Hernandez, stayed out of the conversation.
Gutierrez said the sub asked for fiction ideas, and wrote "Bible" on the board. Gutierrez erased it, and the sub wrote it again. Gutierrez, Hernandez and two other students got passes to go to the library.
After they left, the sub said Gutierrez and Hernandez "were acting like n------," according to a text Gutierrez received from a friend still in the class. When Gutierrez questioned the sub, he said the sub became angry.
Gutierrez went to the main office and he and Hernandez were asked to write down what happened. Gutierrez texted his mother, Mary Peters, asking her to come pick him up. Peters said she got a call from assistant principal Matt Clausen, too, informing her what had happened.
A day later, Missoula County Public Schools issued a news release vaguely describing the incident. It said the sub had been removed and Human Resources had launched an investigation. Because it is a personnel issue, the sub's name has not been released, nor have the results of the investigation.
Gutierrez said the sub would not tell the class his name, instead telling them to call him "Mr. C."
Peters said she hasn't heard anything since. She wants to know how the district screens and hires subs, and she wants to know the results of the investigation. She wants to know what happens now.
"I want to know the details so I can have peace of mind," she said. "I think they need to open up communication with parents more, and I'm an involved parent.
"I know he's not teaching in Missoula anymore, but I think he shouldn't be allowed to teach in Montana."
***
There are few requirements for substitute teachers in Montana, and in turn few ways to track or evaluate them.
"MCPS does not routinely conduct formal evaluations of substitute teachers," according to the substitute teacher's handbook, though teachers can fill out a form describing the sub's work.
State law says short-term subs don't need a current teaching license, though preference is often given to those who do. But just as there's a teacher shortage, there's a substitute shortage, said MEA-MFT board president Eric Feaver.
"Now, it is a fact in places like Missoula, Bozeman, Helena, that you will have qualified, licensed and endorsed teachers substituting because they want to or they're looking for a job," he said. "But as you get further out into Montana, it becomes an ever more difficult matter."
The man involved in the Big Sky incident was a short-term sub.
MCPS director of technology and communication Hatton Littman reaffirmed that he is no longer a sub with the district, but she did not know whether he had a teaching license.
MCPS director of human resources and labor relations David Rott was unavailable to comment on this incident, as well as the sub screening and hiring process, until Monday.
Feaver said the requirements to become a sub are "really just about if you can breathe in and out and have a high school diploma or GED and can pass a background check.''
"You could be employed, anybody could be employed, as a substitute teacher" after completing a minimum three-hour training, Feaver said.
Once a sub has taught in a classroom at least 35 consecutive days, they become a long-term sub – if they're licensed. At that point, the sub is "placed under contract on the first step of the teachers' salary schedule and will not receive insurance benefits from the district," according to the Missoula Education Association's collective bargaining agreement.
Substitute teachers need school board approval and they're placed on a call list.
According to an MCPS job posting, a substitute teacher makes $11.43 an hour and a four-year college degree is required.
"If we paid subs more, I think we would demand more," Feaver said.
Often, teachers develop working relationships with certain subs and create a preferred substitutes list. MCPS also has an option for teachers who never want certain subs in their classroom; in the absence management system, the teacher can select a sub's name and add them to an "excluded substitutes list."
"But they are at-will employees," Feaver said. "There's nothing that requires a school district under law to say anything but thank you for your service, and never hire them again. It's not the sort of thing that has just cause or due process. There's no organized substitute organization out there.
"Unless there's criminal activity, you're not going to know really anything about a sub going forward. If a teacher commits an egregious act and loses their license, it goes on the national registry and they're probably done forever in that profession. If a sub does that, if it's not a criminal matter or causes a civil lawsuit, it's pretty certain they could probably go anywhere they want."
If a sub's name is known, anyone can check the status of their teaching credentials online through the Office of Public Instruction. If they're not in this system, it doesn't necessarily mean the sub doesn't have a license. They could have one from another state but are working toward getting their Montana license.
"It should be somewhat comforting to know there are subs out there who do a good job," Feaver said. "But it's discomforting to know that we don't have a way to measure, over time, that instruction. It's a function of resource that should be obvious to everyone. Yet, we do need subs."
***
Gutierrez said the problems with racism at the school didn't start or end that day. He said he and his friends have been the subjects of other racist comments, and Gutierrez said he's endured bullying and racism in sports, as recently as last week.
"I don't want to go back," he said.
He's planning to switch to Sentinel High.
"I send my kids to school for a safe learning environment," Peters said. "And I hold educators at a higher level. This broke down that barrier of trust, in a sense, though I know not all teachers are like that.
"It just kind of knocked me off my feet to see that happen in Missoula."
Gutierrez was one of the Big Sky students to receive a Most Inspiring Student Award this spring. He said he struggled a bit in school this fall, but did extra work and got his grades up so he could participate in sports.
November is the anniversary of his father's death, a difficult time of year anyway. A few days later was the incident with the substitute teacher.
Peters said she appreciated that the sub was quickly removed, but was dismayed to learn more information from the Missoulian than from the school district.
She wants to see more anti-racism education at the school in an effort to combat what she, Gutierrez and their family see as an ongoing issue there.
"It's about communication and education," Peters said. "I'm worried that kids will see adults doing things like this and think it's OK. I don't want to see an entire generation regress back."
The telephone in Home Depot sounded at 5:15 a.m. Tuesday and kept right on ringing all day long, said manager Tanya Kuhl.
“Customers,” she said of the callers, “the media. Anyone and everyone who reads Facebook.”
The previous afternoon, Jennifer Nunnally told the world – in other words, Facebook – that she needed to vent.
Her husband, Corey, who worked at the Missoula Home Depot, was deployed to the Roaring Lion fire in Hamilton this week, after fighting fire in Billings last week. But after he went to Billings, she wrote, “home depot FIRED him.”
“Shame on you Home Depot, I will gladly take my business to Lowes and other local business, where they support their military, first responders and fire fighters and give them a secure job to come home to after saving lives, homes and animals while risking their own life.”
Others quickly joined Nunnally in piling on. “Make this crap go viral! Shame on Home Depot,” posted Jovan Uribe.
Go viral it did. By 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jennifer Nunnally's post had been shared nearly 11,000 times, with comments a-plenty that echoed Uribe’s sentiment.
Nunnally did not respond to messages left seeking comment. But Kuhl confirmed that Corey Nunnally had worked at Home Depot as a seasonal employee. Nunnally was among several seasonal employees recently let go as scheduled, she said, adding, “for no other reason. He remains hireable.”
Due to the Roaring Lion fire burning southwest of Hamilton, the east side of Westside Road from Roaring Lion to Westbridge road and both sides of Wyant and Nighthawk lanes have been added to the Stage 2 evacuation area, according to the Ravalli County Sheriff's Office. No one will be allowed into the Stage 2 evacuation area due to expected fire behavior.
The fire also has forced the temporary closure of the Bitterroot River from Wally Crawford fishing access site to Angler's Roost, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks announced.
The section of river will remain closed until further notice, although the closure should last for at least 24-48 hours, according to FWP. Helicopters may use the stretch of river to dip water to fight the fire.
For up-to-date information on this closure and restrictions related to drought and fire, visit fwp.mt.gov/news/restrictions/ or call the FWP office in Missoula at 406-542-5500.
-fwp-
Jordan Tripp was among the first to publicly congratulate Bobby Hauck on his recent promotion.
How appropriate, I thought. Two of the most driven individuals to ever walk down the tunnel at Washington-Grizzly Stadium, still plugging away and churning up adversity under their feet, relentless in their pursuit of football success.
We all know what happened to Tripp in 2015. The former Montana Grizzly linebacker quickly bounced back after being cut by the Miami Dolphins, becoming the first Missoula man in 85 years to earn an NFL start after signing with the Jaguars.
Hauck, Tripp's former coach and a man who was never fully appreciated for the success he had as Griz skipper from 2003-09, resigned as leader of the seemingly-forever-broken UNLV football program in December of 2014. His turnaround was almost as quick as that of Tripp.
It took Bobby one season as an assistant at San Diego State to grab headlines, this month receiving an award (Mountain West Recruiter of the Year) and promotion (associate head coach). His Aztecs have won 10 games in a row, the second-longest active win streak in big-time college football.
To put it in Treasure State terms, the intense one from Big Timber wasted no time getting back on his horse.
"Either that or it's desperation," he joked in an interview with the Missoulian.
Hauck coached at Montana at a time when losing was simply unacceptable. Three times he guided the Grizzlies to the FCS title game in compiling a gaudy record of 80-17.
"The last four years when we were 31-1 in the conference and whatever it was overall (51-6), it was a lot of fun," Hauck said. "The investment the community has in it there, I thought it was really cool everyone shared in the joy of games and championships.
"You don't get to replicate that unless you're winning at that magnitude in a college town. It was a unique time and I was glad to be a part of it."
Does Hauck miss Missoula? Definitely. Does he ever wish he hadn't left? You bet.
Bobby actually talked with UM officials when Mick Delaney stepped down as Grizzly head coach in 2014. He still keeps in close contact with several of Montana's most generous athletic department donors.
As you know, Delaney was succeeded by Bob Stitt, who lost five games in his debut season. Hauck never lost five games in a season at Montana. He lost four in his last three seasons combined.
Given the upgrades to Montana's facilities and the recovery time the Grizzlies have had since a nightmarish 2012 led to the firing of coach Robin Pflugrad and athletic director Jim O'Day, it's time to start thinking big again.
I mean real big. Let's leave the excuses to all those teams that average a fraction of Montana's 24,000 fans per home game.
"I think it's a big year for them," said Hauck, who guided UM to the FCS title game in his second season. "For Montana to be Montana, you have to win the Big Sky Conference championship and you have to compete in the playoffs.
"The expectation has been re-centered. You don't have to win every game by four touchdowns now. I'm pretty sure if we would have lost five games, they would have burned my house down with me in it. But we all want what is best for that program, which is winning championships."
Even when Hauck was at UNLV, he found a way to lead the Rebels to their first bowl game in 15 years. Had certain people been a little more patient, he would have accomplished even more.
"Frankly I think had we found a way to win a couple of games we should have our last year, then (2015) we'd a been there and probably had a chance to get back to a bowl game," Bobby opined. "We had the only returning starting quarterback in the league, who's a pretty good player.
"Then you're in a bowl game two out of three years and everybody is thinking what a wonderful job you did rather than why couldn't you quite get it going the way you needed to."
Regardless of where he's coaching or in what capacity, Hauck is a winner, plain and simple. One who knows how to motivate young men and will soon be signing up for another head coaching job.
For Montana's sake, let's hope it's not at the FCS level, guiding one of the Grizzlies' rivals.
Bill Speltz can be reached at 523-5255 or bill.speltz@missoulian.com.
A 13-year-old boy was flown to St. John's Medical Center in Jackson, Wyoming, after he fell into a hot pool in Yellowstone National Park's Upper Geyser Basin on Saturday night.
The teen was apparently being carried by his father, who slipped, said Charissa Reid, a Yellowstone spokeswoman. The boy's leg was burned around the ankle and foot.
Some of Yellowstone's hot springs can reach temperatures of 199 degrees. Household hot water heaters are typically set at no more than 120 degrees.
The father suffered splash burns while pulling his son out of the hot springs but refused treatment. The boy was initially taken to the Old Faithful Clinic before being flown to Jackson. The boy's condition is unknown.
The incident is the latest in what has been a spring visitation season highlighted by unusual reports. A Canadian man and his son faced charges after picking up an apparently abandoned bison calf. A Canadian film group was cited for walking onto Grand Prismatic Spring after their video of the adventure surfaced on the internet. And a woman was filmed trying to pet a bison near Old Faithful Geyser.
Missoulian Staff
By summer, a portion of the former mill site in Bonner will be transformed into a natural, outdoor amphitheater nestled along the Blackfoot River that can accommodate 4,000 people.
KettleHouse Brewing Co. and the owner of the Wilma Theatre and the Top Hat Lounge have joined forces to build the KettleHouse Amphitheater.
"We feel that there's a big need in the region for a dedicated outdoor venue," said Nick Checota, who owns Logjam Presents production company and the Wilma and Top Hat.
With its scenic backdrop, he imagines "this will be like a Gorge or like a Red Rocks" with a more intimate scale that suits Missoula.
KettleHouse, the local craft brewery best known for its Cold Smoke Scotch ale, recently completed construction on a 23,000-square-foot brewing facility on 18 acres at the former mill site. The new operation, which complements its two tap rooms, will allow KettleHouse to greatly expand its canning.
The KettleHouse property is located at the upper northeast edge of the site, right along the riverbank, allowing concert-goers a scenic view of the Blackfoot and the mountains that matches the company's outdoors philosophy.
In a news release, brewery co-owner Tim O'Leary said, “The new KettleHouse Amphitheater will enhance the KettleHouse brand and extend our commitment to creating a unique Montana experience that celebrates the combination of great craft beer with the amazing natural resources of our state.”
Checota said it's a way for the brewery to create "a cool environment for people to enjoy music and their beer outdoors."
***
The permanent outdoor stage and amphitheater will make it unique for Montana, he said. The state has numerous festivals, most of which use temporary stages.
The classic amphitheater design will have three tiers. In the front of the stage, there's a pit with room for around 600 standing-room general admission concert-goers. Next up is reserved seating for about 1,050 people on rows of 4-foot-wide tiers with grass tops. The general admission lawn tier on the outer rim can fit about 2,350 people.
The venue will slope about 28 feet down from the lawn tier to the stage, which should provide comfortable sight lines for all concert-goers, a problem for shorter patrons at many clubs and festivals.
The bowl's grass-covered surfaces will help absorb sound, and lack of permanent structures around the stage will help as well. They chose grass seating to help blend with the natural environment.
"When you're floating by, we don't want you to see any bleacher seats," he said.
Checota said the portion of the property they'll excavate used to be a river bank. Based on photographs from the 1950s and '60s, they say the bank was filled in with wood debris from the mill.
Logjam is signing a long-term lease on the property and will build the amphitheater. The Top Hat, meanwhile, will handle catering and pour beer at the events.
***
The covered stage with a 35-foot roof can hold the transportable line-array speakers the Wilma purchased a little more than a year ago. It's the same type of top-of-the-line system that touring bands bring with them on the road, and is designed for venues as large as the amphitheater.
"One of the reasons I invested like I did in a sound system that was arguably over-sized for the Wilma was to be able to do events like this," Checota said.
Excavation work has already begun and concerts could begin in mid-summer. He expects announcements will start filtering out early next year.
He estimates booking 10 to 15 concerts a year at the site. After he purchased and renovated the Wilma and the Top Hat, the two largest music venues in downtown, he began pursuing prominent acts who would be attracted by a high-quality room in a smaller city, and anticipates the amphitheater will be just as much of a draw.
"They go to bigger venues in the primary markets and they come to Missoula and we get to put them in a more intimate, smaller venue," he said. "I think you're going to get bands routing between Red Rocks and the Gorge, so my hope is that we bring in bands that really fit into that 4,000-capacity space."
In addition to the amphitheater, KettleHouse's property will accommodate 1,500 parking spots. They also plan to offer and encourage people to use shuttle buses from the Top Hat and the KettleHouse.
They're working with the Department of Transportation on traffic safety issues around getting vehicles in and out of the property, which is located on the two-lane Highway 200.
In addition to concerts, he foresees hosting community events, much like he does at the Top Hat and Wilma.
"KettleHouse and Logjam feel that there is a great opportunity to provide a place for community organizations and not-for-profits to do different types of events," he said.
The space could host festival-style events, perhaps in tandem with the Wilma and Top Hat, but he doesn't anticipate that occurring in the first year.
***
Checota and his wife Robin bought the Top Hat Lounge, a historic venue downtown, in 2012. Nick Checota, who has a background in medical real estate and general contracting experience, invested heavily in renovations. They purchased a new sound system, added a kitchen and more before reopening the following year. The extensive interior remodeling increased the capacity to 600 people.
In March 2015, Checota bought the historic Wilma Theatre, the former opera house and movie theater built in 1921. They purchased that new sound system, invested in acoustic improvements and renovated the interior. They stripped out the old seats on the slanted main floor and built three tiers, which boosted the capacity to 1,500 people for standing-room rooms. In addition, they added more bars, installed new seats on the balcony, expanded the bathrooms and completely renovated the notoriously grimy green rooms downstairs.
The theater reopened in October 2015 with a goal of making the Wilma a destination venue for national touring acts. In October 2016, it served 14,000 customers and broke its concessions record three times. On Election Night, country singer-songwriter Sturgill Simpson played a sold-out show, only a month before he was nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammys.
While many venue owners work with outside promoters, Checota has served as his own exclusive talent buyer and will do the same at the amphitheater.
To create less confusion, earlier this month he launched an entertainment production company called Logjam Presents and hired additional staff. With Logjam, named in honor of the former mill site, he's begun booking shows in Bozeman and will start bringing concerts to the Osprey Stadium here in Missoula this summer.
In all the ventures, he's tried to pick bands that fit with Missoula's particular culture and local taste instead of choosing acts that happen to be passing through on their way to other states.
"We work really hard to book music that's specific to us, rather than fitting them in some routing that goes from space to space to space," he said.
He's continued reinvesting in the two venues. The Top Hat recently renovated its green room and he's planning a $200,000 upgrade to the sound system.
"I have one objective, and that's to bring good music to Montana," he said. The venue and their investments are "putting us on the map," he said.
KALISPELL — Authorities say homes in a rural area east of Thompson Falls have been evacuated after a wildfire in northwestern Montana doubled in size in one day.
Fire officials say extreme fire behavior is also expected for the Copper King Fire on Monday, with wind gusts of up to 40 mph forecast to blow across the dry, hot terrain.
The Sanders County Sheriff's Office issued evacuation orders early Monday along Little Thompson River Road. Some 20 homes and structures are threatened, and other residents have been put on notice that the evacuation area may spread.
A shelter has been set up at Thompson Falls High School.
Some 317 firefighters are responding to the blaze, which grew 4 ½ square miles Sunday to nearly 11 square miles as of Monday morning.
BILLINGS – It’s not official yet and still shrouded in secrecy, but the Boone and Crockett Club posted a photo and story on its website Tuesday showing what could be a new world record bull elk shot by a Montana archer.
Views of the posting on Boone and Crockett’s Facebook and web page have topped 1 million, said Justin Spring, director of the club’s big game records.
An official measurer scored the bull’s antlers at 429-6/8 net and 448-4/8 gross, according to the club’s website. That compares to the current archery world record of 412-1/8 points, based on the Pope and Young Club’s records of an elk taken in Arizona in 2005. Pope and Young is the keeper of archery records. The bull would rank No. 4 in the world when up against Boone and Crockett's rifle hunters. The No. 1 Boone and Crockett typical bull scored 442-5/8 and was shot in Arizona in 1948.
The caveat is that before the Montana bull can be officially scored there is a required 60-day drying period.
“They probably won’t be quite that big when they shrink and dry,” Spring said.
But the likelihood that the antlers would shrink so much that they don’t beat the Arizona bull are fairly slim.
“The green score of this bull is 4-3/8 higher than the current No. 4 typical bull in Boone and Crockett’s All-time Records,” Boone and Crockett reported on its website. According to Spring, “This bull may well be the largest typical American elk taken in the last 48 years.”
In comparison, the highest scoring typical elk ever taken by a rifle hunter in Montana scored 419-4/8 and was shot by Fred Mercer. The largest elk shot by an archer in Montana scored 409-2/8 and was taken by Chuck Adams on a private ranch in Eastern Montana. A “typical” elk has symmetrical antlers whereas a “nontypical” elk has antlers that are oddly shaped.
This new elk was shot by a Montana hunter who asked Boone and Crockett to keep his name and where he hunted secret until his buddy can get to the same spot and fill his tag before other ambitious hunters overrun the countryside, Spring said.
What Spring did reveal is that the elk was shot by a “good, down-to-earth Montana hunter” who was hunting alone on Sept. 10. It took the hunter a couple of days to pack the bull out, making it seem likely the animal was shot on public land.
“Generally we don’t hear about it so quickly,” Spring said, but he happened to know the scorer. “You hear those numbers and it’s something you have to follow up on.”
“The existence of outstanding specimens like this incredible animal is testament that today's hunters, wildlife professionals, and conservation organizations are achieving tremendous success by practicing sound conservation and wildlife-management programs,” said Joe Bell, Pope and Young’s executive director, on the Boone and Crockett website.
Spring said even though he has not filled his elk tag yet this season the Montana archer’s success gives him a spark of hope.
“There’s a chance all of us might” bag a bigger bull, Spring said, “but I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
He added, “I always thought I was a pretty good hunter until I started working for Boone and Crockett.”
A little-known, painful reaction to heavy use of potent marijuana is popping up in emergency departments, hospitals and clinics throughout the country.
Because the disorder is often misdiagnosed, frequent users of large amounts of cannabis with high levels of the euphoria-inducing component THC find themselves in continuing agony and often receiving unneeded diagnostic testing and sometimes surgery exceeding $100,000.
The malady is called cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome and presents endless cycles of violent vomiting and gut-wrenching abdominal pain.
Although the syndrome was first reported in medical journals in 2004, many physicians, pot sellers and users still don’t know about it.
“You can think of it as a new or emerging disease,” said Dr. Eric Lavona, chief of emergency medicine at Denver Health Medical Center.
Lavona, who is an expert spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians, cautions his colleagues to “be careful not to trivialize it.''
“These folks are really suffering. They can get pretty sick. They vomit like crazy and make frequent emergency department visits because they just can't stop vomiting.”
The average patient with the syndrome made five visits to stand-alone clinics, seven trips to emergency departments and was hospitalized three or more times, said Dr. Cecilia Sorensen, also an emergency medicine doctor at the sprawling Denver hospital. Colorado has become an epicenter for marijuana research, especially for the obscure, painful hyperemesis disorder, because it was the first in the country to legalize recreational pot.
But the cause continues to be missed by many.
Late last month, a young woman came to the emergency department at Missoula’s Providence St. Patrick’s hospital complaining of repeated vomiting that wouldn’t stop, said Dr. Douglas Melzer, who treated her. She had a Montana Medical Marijuana Card issued to control chronic pain and told him that she’d been using pot for at least four or five years. But a week earlier, “out of the blue,” the violent, cyclical vomiting started.
Hot baths and hot showers gave her some relief, but only for the moment, Melzer said. Many victims of the syndrome have learned that the pain can be alleviated by simply bathing in hot water. But once the water turns cold, suffering returns with a vengeance.
A week earlier she went to another hospital where she was given a common anti-nauseal drug in the emergency department and sent home. Soon, she was back, still vomiting and was admitted to that hospital for two days while being treated for severe electrolyte abnormalities, which is dehydration caused by the loss of fluids from the continuous vomiting.
Doctors at the first hospital had scheduled her for a series of diagnostic tests to see what was happening, including a colonoscopy, an endoscopy, a CT-Scan and a few other studies, the woman told Melzer. But she said she had left before the procedures were begun.
Cyclic vomiting is caused by many different things, but because Melzer had seen it before and his patient willingly discussed her use of marijuana, he knew what he was dealing with.
“I treated her with Haldol, which is what we think is the best anti-emetic for this,” he said. The antipsychotic medication, called haloperidol, has many other off-label uses including for nausea, sedation and migraines.
Popping up everywhere
In Denver, Lavona said he knows of 50 or so people at any given time who suffer from the reaction.
“This has become a very common problem for us. We see it all the time in several patients a week in our emergency department, and all the emergency departments around Denver,” the physician added. “It takes time for the medical community to learn about it and recognize it. But once you're familiar with the disease, you're not likely to misdiagnose it.”
Emergency room personnel at San Francisco General Hospital, Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., Harborview and University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle also report routinely seeing cases of cannabinoid hyperemesis, but none could provide numbers of patients with the diagnosis for any specific period.
It should be noted that these hospitals are in states where the recreational use of marijuana is legal or widely used. In 28 states and the District of Columbia, the use of marijuana is legal for medical purposes.
Nevertheless, obtaining accurate numbers of the cases of the syndrome borders on the impossible. Jon Ebelt, a spokesman for the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services offered an explanation: cannaboid hyperemesis syndrome does not have a specific ICD Code (International Classification of Diseases Code) which are used for billing and for disease surveillance. “Therefore, there is no way to track diagnosed cases,” Ebelt said.
But pot is being used everywhere.
“Like everybody else, we have a lot of marijuana use in Butte,” said Dr. Alan Mayer, at the town’s St. James Hospital. “We all know what cyclic vomiting is, but in the past we didn’t recognize that a lot of these people were chronic marijuana smokers.”
He said he’s concerned that “there are probably more patients that have it that we haven’t identified yet.”
The difficulty in diagnosing the syndrome is due in part to its paradoxical use, meaning that while marijuana is often used for stemming nausea and vomiting caused by many ailments, with the hyperemesis patients it causes the precise symptoms it is supposed to end.
While diagnostic and surgical intervention is often ultimately the wrong choice to get to the cause of the problem, it’s often the most prudent course to follow to protect a patient’s life when the cause is unknown. Several emergency medicine specialists explained the symptoms can often be confused for life- threatening maladies that demand immediate intervention. These include bowel perforation, an ectopic pregnancy, pancreatitis, an arterial embolus, an abscess, a ruptured aortic aneurysm and a score of others.
Risk from wrong guesses
Lavonas and other emergency medicine practitioners said the greatest risk to the patient is from unnecessary diagnostic testing.
Repeated CT scans to try to figure out the reason for severe abdominal pain present a risk from radiation or reaction to the contrast dye. With endoscopy, the passage of a flexible tube into either end of a person’s digestive tract, presents the risk, albeit minimal, of reaction to sedation or anesthetic or a possible tearing of the walls of the track, they said.
Sorensen practices at the Denver hospital long heralded for its sophisticated treatment of victims of violence, earning it the nickname “Knife and Gun Club,” and which has become a center known for its treatment of acute drug emergencies. She has also studied the dollar-and-cents cost of wrongly identifying the syndrome.
Sorensen's study, which followed marijuana users with the syndrome for two years, showed the accumulated medical charges for those patients ranged from $62,420 to more than $250,000 each.
Mayer, in Butte, said that a few years ago he “wouldn’t have even thought of testing for chronic marijuana use, but this is a very expensive problem.”
He said one of his patients ended up with the $40,000-plus equivalent of an abdominal pacemaker.
“They thought his stomach wasn’t working and they implanted a stimulator, but he was one of the people who tested positive for marijuana every time,” the Butte doctor said.
A profile of the affected
In Sorensen's research on 200 cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome patients she teamed with Dr. Andrew Monte, a professor at the University of Colorado Hospital and a toxicologist at Rocky Mountain Poison Center. Their work characterized the patients as having an average age of 28. Three out of four are male, and 75 percent have used cannabis for more than a year.
In Missoula, Melzer added that the patients he has seen and diagnosed “are people who use multiple times a day, and it's something that is a lifestyle agent for them, it's not just every so often they're using. So I think the doses are pretty high.”
However, the physicians questioned agree there is no indication the symptoms are caused by an overdose.
Those experienced with making the correct diagnosis are passionate in saying the key is getting the patient to trust them and be truthful.
“Taking a history about substance use requires the doctor to ask in a way that makes it possible for the patient to give an honest answer without feeling ashamed, and it requires people to be willing to give that honest answer. Until that happens you'll never make the diagnosis,'' said Lavonas.
"We’ve got to make it clear to the patient that none of us are going to judge you if you smoke pot. We just want to help you medically. The best way to do that is for us to have all the information,” he said.
At Billings Clinic, Montana’s largest hospital system, Dr. Daniel Hurst said that often when people are asked whether they use drugs, or alcohol or marijuana, initially they say no.
“But I’ve found here in Montana at least, that if confronted and you kind of explain why you’re asking, people will give you an honest answer and that makes the chance of an accurate diagnosis more likely,” Hurst said.
He said when he encounters a patient with the symptoms, he gives them information on the syndrome and “suggests that they try to go weeks, if not months, without using to see if that controls the symptoms.”
Education is everyone’s duty
Scores of factors impact the degree of kick or buzz from what people smoke or ingest. Government researchers have reported for years that the potency of marijuana is dependent on the concentration of THC in the product. That is governed by what part and how much of specific portions of the plant producers use. For example, the flowers or trichomes on the mature female cannabis plant contain the highest concentration of THC. Plant stalks have about 100 times less potency. The blend will impact the money the seller makes and effect it has on the user.
But how is the pot user to know the strength of the product they’re buying?
In some areas where marijuana use is legal for both medical and recreational use, storefront dispensaries with their green crosses dot the commercial landscape with the frequency of coffee shops. Some offer extensive labeling and signs to tell customers what they're getting.
Physicians who believe that marijuana will help their patients are forbidden by federal law from actually prescribing specific strains or amounts. To do so would allow the government to charge practitioners for aiding and abetting in a federal crime.
Almost all the medical personnel interviewed said the pot users they had treated were not educated on the syndrome by either the physicians who initially recommends the use of marijuana or the providers who sold it.
“That’s not being done at all,” Melzer said. “There are very, very few people who come into an emergency department who have ever heard of this syndrome before. Providers don't know as much about it and I think the public knows nothing about it.”
Mayer, the Butte physician, said he believes that the physicians who suggest their patients use marijuana and those who sell it, have the responsibility to educate the users of the risk.
Sorensen said she suspects that patients have a genetic predisposition to developing the syndrome but adds, “there is no way to prove there is and no way to predict who will get it and how much cannabis use it takes before the syndrome appears.”
“It appears from the literature that once you have the syndrome, any future use of cannabis can trigger a relapse into a cyclic vomiting episode. It seems like a switch is flipped physiologically,” she said.
Based on the hundreds of cases she and her colleague Monte have evaluated, the pair will soon be issuing guidelines and suggested protocols to give physicians and other emergency medical personnel the best chance of accurately diagnosing the syndrome.
