Meth Addiction Steals Lives on Indian Reservations Throughout North West

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.