Anti-illegal immigration bill won’t go to full House

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Meth Addiction Steals Lives on Indian Reservations Throughout North West

Police Struggle with Rising Crime Rates Due to Meth Use

In a place of stark beauty, surrounded by snow-capped mountains, poverty, joblessness, alcoholism and now methamphetamines rule supreme. On more than 2.2 million acres, where some 12,000 Native Americans live in mostly isolated conditions, members of the Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes struggle with the effects of a modern scourge that has taken over lives and in many cases already stretched community resources. Crime is on the rise and tribal police who are in most cases understaffed struggle to maintain order. This scourge was not brought into the Reservations by the white man, but by a Mexican Drug Cartel who decided that due to poverty and already rampant alcoholism the Native Americans were ripe for the picking. Their theory seems to be correct.

Back as far as 2000, a Mexican Drug Cartel moved near to the Wind River Reservation. Men involved in the Cartel began romancing the local Native American women, and providing them with free samples of the methamphetamines that they were hawking, and often also fathered children of those women. They were succeeding in their plan to entwine meth into the society they hoped to make into their next victim and money maker. It worked. The women became more and more dependent on the potent drug and the drug dealers left them without resources. The women became forced to deal the drug themselves in order to provide for their newly formed habit and to take care of their children. The cycle had become complete. The women did business by giving out the familiar free samples just as they had once received. In a country where isolation and poverty reigns, the easy money of selling meth and other prescription drugs became a solution to a difficult often unsolvable problem. Drugs became the answer.

During the next four years the drug gangs sold more and more drugs to the Native population much of the meth brought up from Mexico was more then 98% pure quickly hooking its victims The drugs brought in to the US would often travel from Mexico up through Los Angeles, to Ogden Utah and then on to Wyoming and beyond.

On reservations throughout the northwest, crime rates began to rise. From 2003 through 2006 the rate of child neglect rose more than 131%.Arrests due to drug possession was up 163% and spousal abuse rose by an alarming 218%. The Bureau of Indian Affairs stated that the effects of methamphetamines are the greatest threat to Indian communities that they face in modern times. The local police departments are struggling to keep up with the negative effects that the insidious drug creates. The Drug Cartels had counted correctly on the difficulties that the local police would face due to the complicated law enforcement jurisdiction on Indian Reservations. The communities that are hit the hardest are the most isolated with residents living sometimes miles apart. This issue is more complicated by the fact that the local police departments are insufficiently understaffed. Wind River Reservation has only 10 police officers on staff to care for it's spread out community. Normal response times for police calls is often more than 20 minutes.

Most Indian Reservations have few if any drug treatment centers and the contacts for Indian Health Services are up more then 250%. One spokesperson stated, "If more people are arrested there is no treatment available nor anyone to pay for it anyhow". The drug problem has escalated to the point that in many cases whole families are participating in use and sales of meth and other prescription drugs illegally. One family with the surname of Goodman has had more than 19 people including grandparents to grandchildren arrested for dealing drugs.The tribal judge was also arrested in the incident. In many tribal communities, members of the tribal council are falling victim to addiction of this powerful drug. One tribal member commented on how difficult it is to have a government function when many of leaders are also addicted.

The Drug Cartel has also been selling their wares on The Rosebud, Pine Ridge, and Yankton Reservations and also Sioux Reservations in Nebraska. One article in the Denver Post stated that in one Nebraska liquor store near Pine Ridge Reservation, there had been millions of dollars of drugs sold to Native Americans. The sales would be much higher after the periods when per capita checks or shares of tribal profits were made to residents.

President George Bush has proposed in his budget for 2008, a $16 million dollar increase in funding to Indian Countries to combat meth use and its effects. Wind River is looking forward to getting more money to increase it's depleted and over worded police staff and to fight another battle that is threatening the Native American community.

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Morongo Indian Reservation, East of San Bernardino:

the other side of the Indian story concerning meth...

News From Indian Country 9-09

...With a monthly income averaging $30,000 for each Tribal
Member, the new Morongo Casino has done more than just eliminate
welfare and federal subsidy dependencies. The Morongo Band of Mission
Indians has become one of the most successful tribes in California and
ranks amongst the most successful in the Nation...


...There is a huge methamphetamine epidemic for the Morongo Reservation
and members there still suffer from drug and alcohol related dependencies...

To be fair, this is an exerpt. I don't know how biased the article is, but for sure things are much different than twenty years ago, certainly forty years ago.

There truly has been a meth problem at Morongo in the near past. I haven't seen anything concerning Mexican dealers at Morongo.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=...lTx9g3FPDDq9bQ

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Tribes taking varying paths in war on meth

Indians viewing issue as 'critical'

Diana Marrero

The Desert Sun Washington Bureau

August 20, 2006

American Indian tribes and tribal groups are getting creative in fighting what they consider an epidemic on tribal lands - methamphetamine use.
In Oklahoma, Indian archery and the traditional game of Cherokee marbles have taken on new meaning in the past couple of years as vehicles for teaching students about the dangers of meth and other drugs.

Some tribes, such as the Lummi Nation of Washington, are fighting meth with one of the harshest punishments at their disposal: banishment. Still others are integrating traditional ideas and healing into alternative sentencing options through new drug courts.

And the Morongo Band of Mission Indians in California is among dozens of tribes who have sent employees to meth training programs to help them spot the signs of addiction.

''Several years ago, this wasn't Indian country's biggest substance abuse issue,'' said Jackie Johnson, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians. ''Now, meth is clearly one of those critical crisis areas.''
The group - which considers fighting meth a top priority - is working with the
Partnership for a Drug Free America on designing a national ad campaign to warn American Indians about meth addiction. It also plans to address the problem at its annual convention in Sacramento in October.

The organization, which represents at least 250 tribes across the country,
launched a major effort earlier this year to draw attention to what it says is an alarming rate of meth abuse on tribal lands.

Since then, the White House has created an interagency working group to
address meth in Indian country, the Senate has held a hearing on the issue and tribes are creating a national task force to combat the problem.

Worries in Riverside County

In Riverside County, most of the tribal officials reached for comment either
reported they did not have a major problem with meth or did not want to discuss the issue publicly. But local health officials say meth abuse is a problem countywide.

"It is the No. 1 drug of choice in Riverside County right now and has been for a number of years," said Maria Lozano, a behavioral health specialist at the county's mental health department.

Even though only 1.4 percent of the county's population is American Indian, they comprised about 2.2 percent of the nearly 5,000 admission cases for meth addiction last year at publicly funded facilities in Riverside, according to statistics kept by the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs.

Statewide, about 4.4 percent of the nearly 79,000 admissions were American Indian, while only 1.2 percent of the state's population are tribal members.

Local police officials say the number of meth-related calls received by the Riverside County Sheriff's office is rising even as the number of labs declines because meth is imported from Mexico.

Meth is a problem across the region, including on Indian lands, said Fred Fierro, the task force commander for the Coachella Valley Narcotics Task Force.

While the local tribes are generally supportive of law enforcement efforts, some Mexican drug pushers have been known to live on the reservations and traffic the drug from there, he said.

Waltona Manion, a spokeswoman for the Morongos, said she did not know how prevalent meth use among tribal members is, but the tribe sent its counseling staff to a recent meth training session to help them spot the signs of meth addiction and learn to work with meth users.

"It is a part of their proactive approach to their social service," she said.
The National American Indian Housing Council also has provided meth training to Morongo housing authority officials.

"The most tell-tale signs are rapid weight loss and extreme paranoia," said Jay Barton, a retired police official who helps train the organization.

Nancy Conrad, a spokeswoman for the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, said she did not have any information about whether meth was a problem for tribal members. But Mary Belardo, the former chairwoman of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla tribe, said several tribal members on her reservation can't seem to kick the meth habit.

"The whole valley has a problem," said Belardo, who now works at the tribal clinic. "It's a strange drug and it seems to be very powerful. People who get hooked on it, get really hooked."
Jacob Coin, a spokesman for the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians based in San Bernardino, said he did not think the tribe had a problem with meth.
However, Coin said the tribe has worked hard to combat the root of many social problems by creating jobs.

"When people have no economic opportunities and little other opportunities, these people tend to be swept away by these social ills," he said.

Rich, poor afflicted

But wealthier tribes, such as the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, also feel the effects of meth.

Earlier this year, law enforcement officials announced one of the biggest meth busts in the region, netting 93 arrests and breaking up a trafficking ring that distributed drugs at three casinos in Oklahoma.

Some tribal officials hope returning to tradition also will help them combat the meth problem. B.J. Boyd, with the Cherokee Nation's behavioral health services, said traditional activities can reach youth in a way a speaker in a classroom can't.

Substance abuse changes

In the past few years, meth has replaced alcohol as the No. 1 substance abuse problem in Indian country, tribal leaderssay. The consequences have been even more devastating.

American Indians are more likely than other racial groups to use meth, according to a 2004 survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. At the time, 1.7 percent of American Indians had used meth - compared to .7 percent of whites, .5 percent of Latinos and .1 percent of blacks.

Indian activists say those numbers have grown. Some tribes report much higher abuse rates.

It's the biggest problem facing tribal police now, said Chris Chaney, Bureau of Indian Affairs' director of law enforcement. Chaney said tribes are being hit hardest because of sheer geography. Until recently, meth was primarily a problem in the West, home to most Indian tribes.

"One of the reasons is the vast majority of Indian country is west of the Mississippi [River]," he said.

In California, meth has created disturbing problems, say officials with the California Indian Legal Services. In nearly everycase they have worked on in which Indian children are taken from their home, at least one parent is using meth or the baby tested positive for the drug at birth.

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I'm sorry, I went way off topic - I got started and I couldn't stop.

If the moderator would like to cut the material out of this thread and place
it in a new thread elsewhere, that's fine.