Non-Traditional Response to Meth Plague is Another Plague

Methamphetamine On Pine Ridge Reservation - Politicians Seek to Banish Users from Rez
By Kelly Foster
KNBN-TV in Indian Country Today
May 17
"Methamphetamine is a drug that does not discriminate. Not only is it sweeping the streets of big cities, it's also a growing problem on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Now reservation leaders are trying to get meth abusers banished from the tribe. Looking around the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, there are no signs that a killer is among the people.
Lydia Bear Killer, Tribal Council Representative
'Meth is becoming a killer, that's all it is. It's killing.'
Leaders say it's a drug that's found its way into their schools, neighborhoods, and now the streets.
Georgine Looks Twice, Meth Task Force
'It just came in, swooped in out of wherever.'
So fast and furious that the Reservation Meth Task Force was created to focus efforts on education and prevention. However, task force members say there is one main problem. There are no laws tough enough to fight the addiction. But that's all about to change with a strict new meth law on the drawing board, one that could ultimately lead to banishment.
The creators of the new meth law in Pine Ridge admit it's tough. Basically it's three strikes, and you're out.
First time offenders caught using meth will spend time in a treatment facility and undergo extensive counseling. Second time offenders could be subject to jail time and banishment from the tribe for two years. And for the third offense, it's three strikes, you're out. Offenders could be banished from the tribe for life.
'It's hard to be banished because this is your identity, but it's going to have to be tough.'
But it's a tough luck law that's not only gaining support from leaders, but from the community as well.
'Actually I don't think it's tough enough.'
'I think it would be best for this place.'
Leaders say it's time to take matters into their own hands and are using the law to send a message. It's expected to be in front of the tribal council in July for a yes or no vote.
'I have supported it and I will support it on the floor too.'
'We had a child die, and that's too much. That can't be allowed to happen, not here.'
Leaders say if the new law passes it is a guarantee meth is not welcome on the reservation.
Members of the reservation Meth Task Force are confident that the law will go into effect by the end of this year."
...My Responses:
Han, All My Relations, The thinking about this wasicu drug, methadrine or methamphetamine, is wasicu thinking. And I use the term wasicu extremely carefully and deliberately. Traditional Native people do not think in terms of Treatment Centers and jails and BANISHING members from the Tribe for years or for LIFE because of problems brought on because of the large-scale warfare against traditional means of sustenance, material and spiritual. This is WAR, and we do not send our young people away because they are casualties of WAR. No one is mentioning that poor people in general, which means Natives especially, and Pine Ridge residents most especially, are vulnerable to this tactic in the WAR against us. ...That is because Meth, the latest weapon in the war against poor people and Natives is CHEAP. And it can be made by users. It does not have to be imported from far away, or manufactured by wealthy capitalists, criminals, distributors, and large-scale dealers. And its manufacture - as always - rather than its use - is what MUST be prevented, and what CAN be prevented.
...Its ingredients - available in any store - must be locked up, or not sold at all. These are the measures being proposed in more affluent and Euroamerican communities!!!! They realize that they cannot "cure" meth addicts. And they are not willing to "banish" their children. So they are targeting the ingredients their children are using to make meth at home, or in the meth labs on every block.
...They include CERTAIN forms of CERTAIN cold medications. Fine. Stores do not HAVE to sell those forms of those cold medications. End of the meth problems. Like the "alcohol problem" in White Clay. Close the alcohol stores. If the "alcohol problem" moves to Gordon, close the bars and alcohol stores in Gordon. And Rushville. End the deaths - quick or slow - of our people.
...Sure, it takes away profits from white people, taxes from the state of Nebraska. I don't care, and neither should ANYONE ELSE. Force the stores accessible by people in Pine Ridge to stop selling the ingredients of meth. End of the meth problem. ...No U.S. government-run, white-staffed prevention and treatment facilities on reservations, like the kind being fought for by professors and their employees at the University of Nebraska for $9 MILLION grants from the United States government.
...No prison. No banishment of our youths for one minute, much less one year or one lifetime, from the very family and spirituality and culture and tradition and land and politics which are rightfully theirs for support and for action, as the rightful alternative to drug and alchohol use, gangbanging, and other wasicu weapons of genocide.
...SAY NO TO METH INGREDIENTS! SAY NO TO PUNISHING METH USERS! SAY NO TO BANISHING OUR YOUTH! SAY NO TO ALCOHOL SALES! SAY NO TO BARS AT BEAR BUTTE JULY 4-AUGUST 14! SAY YES TO OUR WAYS!
...Mitakuye Oyasin, Hante Unpan Winyan (Cedar Elk Woman), Enraged Traditional Oglala Lakota Half Breed
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Han, Star, Cepansi, and All My Relations,
...I already know that Star is one unique woman. Almost no meth addicts are able to kick the habit, even WITH treatment. It is a testimony to Star that she was able to quit at all, much less on her own.
...In the case of other drugs, I agree about going after the dealers - and the bigger the better, rather than the small and powerless dealers that are easy and safe to arrest and that fill the jails and prisons. In the case of Natives and Reservations, that would take us away from Natives and off the Reservations, as it would take us away from poor people in general.
...However, I was in a treatment program, filled with meth addicts, and they all told me that there was a meth house on every block - around the treatment center, not to mention around the city. More importantly, each and every one of them knew how to make meth themselves and had done so.. There are hundreds of ways to make meth, and they all involve ingredients that can be bought over the counter in stores.
...So this leads me back to the merchants and away from the users and small-time dealers, which are the suppliers of meth, since it is cheap and easy to make, and its ingredients are legal...and well-known.. The ingredients do not have to be sold over the counter. Some of them, like particular forms of certain kinds of cold medications, do not have to be sold at all.
...There are too many addicts who make the meth themselves, and too many small-time producers to punish these people, poor themselves, and victims themselves.
...Let's take the law to the merchants who make money from the misery of others, and make it impossible for ANYONE to make ANY meth for ANYONE to use, so that NO ONE becomes a meth addict, impossible - or almost impossible, given shining exceptions like our shining Star - to cure. Let's be TOUGH with MERCHANTS who profit from misery and death - whether from drugs, their ingredients, or alcohol...and the list could go on and on...
...Mitakuye Oyasin, Hante Unpan Winyan (Cedar Elk Woman) PROUD Oglala Half Breed Traditionalist
Spirituality, Solidarity/Support, Sovereignty/Self-Determination, Sobriety!!!!Native Land for Natives!!!!
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Star, Cepansi, and All My Relations,
....Pilamaya, Cepansi, for sending this most excellent poem that conveys so well what drugs - including meth and alcohol - do to anyone caught up in them.
.....I am addicted to four drugs: tobacco, alcohol, cocaine, and heroin. I would have become addicted to methadrine but I loved it so much the first time I used it that I took a second dose and overdosed so badly I almost died - as I have done on all the other drugs. I do not use any of these drugs, by the mercy of the Spirits. However, I have known addicts all my life - those that are now dead, those that are no longer using, those that are the walking dead, still addicted.
.....I know the addicts in Lincoln especially well, because of my work with Native in the penitentiary, and because of my own time in treatment here.. I have seen meth close up, and people simply cannot quit it. But then, Star quit it. People are not supposed to be able to quit cocaine or heroin either. I quit heroin on my own, and cocaine on my own three times. I cannot describe the sickness, but I made it, thanks to the Spirits. The same with tobacco. There I was fortunate, I lost the taste for it when I quit heroin at age twenty.
.....For me, the most dangerous drug is alcohol - because it is legal and accessible. I have quit alcohol - many times. That is one reason I fight against the sellers and distributors of drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. Because people, especially those whose way of life - whose culture and way of providing their material needs - have been destroyed, who live in material and cultural poverty, who have been taken from their parents and/or are abused by their parents, will always have reasons to use drugs, including alcohol.
....We must make drugs and alcohol inaccessible to our people. We must continue to do what we started with alcohol on Pine Ridge: BANISH THE DRUG!!!! We must banish alcohol further from Pine Ridge. We must banish other drugs from Pine Ridge. In the case of meth, WE MUST BANISH THE INGREDIENTS FOR MAKING METH FROM PINE RIDGE.
.....WE CANNOT STOP THE DESIRE TO USE DRUGS. WE CANNOT STOP THE ADDICTION.. WE CAN BANISH THE DRUGS AND THEIR INGREDIENTS. WE MUST NOT BANISH OUR PEOPLE, THE VICTIMS. WE DO NOT BANISH ALCOHOLICS. WE CANNOT BANISH DRUG ADDICTS.
...Mitakuye Oyasin, Hante Unpan Winyan (Cedar ELk Woman) PROUD Oglala Lakota Half Breed Traditionalist
Spirituality, Solidarity, Sovereignty, Sobriety...Native Land for Native People NOW