Are drugs and alcohol ruining our people?
By Native Sun News Today Editorial Boardnativesunnews.today It is a shame and an embarrassment for the families and for that matter all Native Americans about the Lakota men and women that are so horribly abusing the hoksiyopa (children) that we all consider to be Sacred. This week’s report of a Lakota woman beating her child to death in the most vicious manner because the child soiled itself is beyond belief. And the Lakota family that allowed two of the children in their home to become so malnourished that they looked like children in a Nazi concentration camp. Why is this happening in Lakota Country? Have some of our people become so addicted to drugs and alcohol that their brains have diminished to the point that they have lost all of their Lakota values? The wasicu people read about this and wonder what in the hell is happening in Lakota Country. And the families related to the victims who had no knowledge of the abuse taking place in the homes of their relatives are more than horrified. It makes the rest of us wonder what in the holy hell is happening within our culture and traditions. Two young men rob a store while stealing beer and stab a young woman to death. It appears that every week one of our Lakota men and women are committing such horrible crimes that it makes the rest of us sick to our stomachs. We say, “That’s not us: that’s not a part of our culture; that’s not a part of our spirituality” and yet it goes on and on. The home lives of some of the children is so bad that children as young as 12 years old are committing suicide. What is becoming of our society?
As Martina Looking Horse, the sister of the Keeper of the Sacred Pipe, Arvol Looking Horse, wrote a couple of weeks ago; the drug gangs and cartels are ruining our young men and women. Our proud Lakota women are selling their bodies in order to procure more drugs and our young men are stealing from their own ina’s (mothers) and unci’s (grandmothers) in order to support their drug addictions. Pine Ridge Village is beginning to look like a prison camp with windows covered with bars and wire to keep out the burglars. There are still some Lakota alive today that remember how it was when they never even had to lock their doors. The problems caused by alcohol and drugs did not disappear with the closing of the liquor stores in Whiteclay. There is still plenty of alcohol readily available at the many bootleggers on the reservations and in the surrounding border towns. The problem is not the drugs or alcohol alone, but the addicted people. Addiction is a disease and what is needed more than anything on any of our reservations are the facilities that offer a chance to be cured. There is an old saying that goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” and this means we must start preventing our children from experimenting with drugs or alcohol before it becomes an addiction that needs to be cured. The drug dealers, mostly from Denver, appear to have free reign on our reservations -- what they do not bring from Denver they bring from Rapid City. Our law enforcement has been severely handicapped by lack of money. That lack of money has caused a myriad of problems including a shortage of trained police officers. No matter the case, the senseless murders, robberies, car accidents and illness caused by drugs and alcohol must be addressed. Where we even begin is in the hands of our tribal government and the Indian Health Service. Contact Native Sun News Today Editorial Board at editor@nativesunnews.today Copyright permission Native Sun News Today
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