Health Archives - Page 44 of 90

Healing Lodge: The next step in our journey to fight addiction

Tulalip drummers and singers bless the Healing Lodge with a traditional welcoming song at the grand opening on Friday, April 17. Photo Micheal Rios — Tulalip drummers and singers bless the Healing Lodge with a traditional welcoming song at the grand opening on Friday, May 1.
Photo Micheal Rios

by Micheal Rios, Tulalip News

The much anticipated grand opening ceremony of Tulalip’s qʷibilalʔtxʷ Healing Lodge was held on Friday, May 1. Tribal members, Healing Lodge staff, and community members traveled to the Stanwood property to attend and observe the cultural blessing and welcoming songs, heartfelt Board of Director speeches, and ribbon cutting ceremony that officially marked the grand opening. Tulalip has now decisively chosen to take the next step in fighting the addiction problems in the Tulalip community by providing a transitional home facility for tribal members who are seeking a sober and clean lifestyle.

“I want to welcome you all here to this beautiful Healing Lodge of ours,” said Diane Henry, Recovery Home Manager, prior to the ribbon cutting. “I’m going to get emotional because it’s been a long time and we’ve been working so hard to get these doors open. We’ve worked really hard to try to uphold our values as a tribe, to bring in the programs we want to offer here that can contribute to our community and help those folks who come here to transition back home in a good way. We want to have this facility truly being what that name means, Healing Lodge. It’s a beautiful facility and this truly is a great day for all of us.”

For years now, the tribal membership has been pleading for more services located on the reservation to combat the steadily growing disease of addiction. Instead of sending our members to off-reservation facilities that are unable to relate to their needs culturally and spiritually, they should be able to stay close to home while receiving healing and recovery treatments that they will not only respond to, but that can become part of who the person is at their cultural and spiritual core. The Healing Lodge is the first of many facilities of its kind that we hope to see to built to meet the needs of the people.

“Today, more than ever, addiction is so real in our community,” explains Tulalip Treasurer Les Parks. “It’s an epidemic, not only in our community, but in this entire country. What better way to help our addicted members than to bring them into a place of culture and healing. I am so glad. It warms my heart that we no longer have to send our members to the outside world to transition back into our community. We are sending them to our healing home with our cultural values. This is transitioning our members back into the community. Everything that being Indian means to us rests here in the property. Today is here, it is a good day.”

Outside view of the Healong Lodge, which can accomodate up to 16 residents seeking a clean and sober lifestyle. Photo Micheal Rios — Outside view of the Healing Lodge, which can accomodate up to 16 residents seeking a clean and sober lifestyle.
Photo Micheal Rios

The years of preparation and development that has gone into the Healing Lodge has been meticulously engineered to provide a culturally sensitive transitional home. This home provides a safe, secure, supportive and stable environment for Native Americans seeking to maintain a clean and sober lifestyle. The Healing Lodge’s vision is to extend recovery within the Tulalip Tribal community through quality evidence-based practices, existing programs and continued expansion.

In following the traditions of our Tulalip ancestors, we are ensuring that tribal members are valued and cared for. The Healing Lodge will offer a unique blend of traditional Native, western, and eastern medicines combined with social and psycho-educational modalities of treatment to serve our Native people. Each Healing Lodge client will be adapted into their own client-specific program that is culturally woven with a holistic approach through Red Road to Wellbriety teachings, taking circles, and teaching of Native American drumming and singing. Of course there will be on-site Red Road Recovery meetings and AA/NA outside meetings that will be further supplemented by traditional smudging ceremonies, teachings of equine therapy with on-site horses, and healing through the on-site sweat lodge.

The rooms of the common floor are decorated with Tulalip artwork to make residents feel more at home. Photo/Micheal Rios — The rooms of the common floor are decorated with Tulalip artwork to make residents feel more at home.
Photo/Micheal Rios

One of the resident rooms.Photo/Micheal Rios — One of the resident rooms.
Photo/Micheal Rios

Recovery is a life-long process and involves examining personal identity and beliefs, adjustments and changes to family and social relationship, and changing lifestyles to accommodate sobriety. Tulalip Behavioral Health understands that recovery is more than just abstaining from the use of alcohol and drugs. There will be a variety of classes offered to rebuild lives with traditional value. Healing Lodge residents will have an opportunity to learn gardening, Native arts and crafts, and traditional round drum making and songs. Additionally, personalized classes will be offered for the essential life skills to include financial management, anger management, self-esteem building, and education of the disease of drug addiction and alcoholism, classes for relapse prevention, exercise, meditation, and nutrition.

The Tulalip Board of Directors support offering Native American style services to promote healing of the emotional, physical, spiritual and mental well-being of every member who chooses to become a resident of the Healing Lodge.

“It’s truly about all of us as a collective,” says Board Member Theresa Sheldon. “It’s not about sending one person away and making them get better and figuring out how to function back into the community, but about us as a collective getting better and learning how to function together in a healthier manner. So I’m truly thankful for those reasons today, that we are here and will continue to support each and every member of our community. This is just our first step in becoming healthier as a community. I know it’s going to be fabulous and it’s going to have great, great results for our people.”

The Healing Lodge hopes to be the first huge step, of many yet to come, that will provide the Tulalip Tribes with the resources and services necessary to fight the ever-growing addiction epidemic that plagues so many of our people. The three story Healing Lodge includes a dedicated third floor for eight female residents, a dedicated first floor for eight male residents, and a second floor common area that includes a top of the line kitchen, dining room, meeting rooms, and a library. Also, included on the property are two barns, spacious fields where the equine therapy will take place, garden beds, and scenic walking paths.

“I really want this to be a place of healing for our people. A place where they can go to recover from their addictions and to be able to transition back home with a new set of skills,” says Diane Henry. “Sometimes people need more than just learning how to cook and clean, then need a place that can help them figure out how to live a sober lifestyle. Some people have never seen that in their own families. They may have come from families who’ve battled addiction all their life. Addiction become a normal routine. How do you get out of that? How do you stop that cycle of addiction? This place is that next step after treatment that addresses those issues.”

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Equine Therapy for Lodge Residents

Horses at the Healing Lodge will help promote emotional growth in residents. Photo/Brian Berry — Horses at the Healing Lodge will help promote emotional growth in residents.
Photo/Brian Berry, Tulalip News

One type of therapy offered at the Healing Lodge is Equine Therapy. This type of therapy involves the use of horses by professionals to help with the recovery of patients that are affected by behavioral problems, substance abuse, depression, anxiety, autism, traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder, relationship needs and others. When participants interact with horses, it allows them to learn about themselves when they are learning basic equestrian or horse training commands. Some positive benefits or results of equine therapy are trust, boundaries, spiritual connections, increased social skills, and self-confidence.

Pam McMahon, the barn manager for the Healing Lodge, said that participants receiving equine therapy will be “learning life skills to help them adjust back into society with a different perspective.” She said that anytime you spend time around horses, it tends to soothe the soul. It helps people see a better way of life and develops better relationships because “horses tend to mirror the inner feelings of people”, which will be effective in showing the professionals the feelings, behaviors and attitudes of the participants.

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Art at the Lodge

Rare, one of a kind artwork by national and local artists can be found on display at the Tulalip Healing Lodge. And where some of the artwork came from is a curious approach to decorating.

Paddles and drums by unknown artists were rescued from a local Marysville pawnshop, along with a few prints by Michael Gentry, a Cherokee painter whose work has been purchased by U.S. presidents and is known for his Native portrait paintings.

Many of the larger art pieces were commissioned for the Healing Lodge and crafted by renowned Tulalip carvers, Joe Gobin and James Madison. Large carved cedar tables in the common areas tell traditional Tulalip origin stories, such as Madison’s salmon table that depicts our people’s history with Big Chief Salmon.

Incorporating pawnshop finds with newly crafted art may be a bit unusual for decorating, but Healing Lodge staff couldn’t have been happier with the outcome of unique artwork that completes the Lodge.

By Tulalip News reporters Mara Hill and Brandi N. Montreuil contributed to this article

Contact Micheal Rios, ,rios@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov

Strengthening resiliency for our Tribal community

By Micheal Rios, Tulalip News

On Monday, May 11, and Tuesday, May 12, the Tulalip Resort Casino will host the Tulalip community as we come together to partake in the 3^rd Annual Community Wellness Conference. The event, sponsored by the Tulalip Tribes Problem Gambling and Stop Smoking Programs, starts at 10:00 a.m. and ends at 6:00 p.m. on both days in the Orca Ballroom, with open registration starting at 9:00 a.m. This year’s conference will be a special occasion for all attendees, as we are invited to hear the motivational words and experience the remarkable talents of Native celebrities from across North America.

Highlighted by day one keynote speaker Gyasi Ross, author and storyteller, day two keynote speaker Vaughn Eagle Bear, comedian and actor, and a special performance by DJ crew A Tribe Called Red, the Community Wellness Conference will be sure to keep attendees engaged and interests peaked as we learn how to channel our energies into positive experiences.

“Our theme is strengthening resiliency for our tribal community,” explains Ashley Tiedeman, Smoking Cessation Specialist and co-coordinator of this year’s wellness conference. “This year all of our speakers will be talking about various ways of channeling our energy and efforts into positive and productive ways. It all goes back to expressing our emotions in a healthy way. Instead of using our emotions and energy in a negative way, our speakers will demonstrate how they create a positive experiences using various forms of expression through art and culture.”

Learning new methods of expressing our emotions and channeling our energies in new ways is often difficult, especially when being communicated to by outsiders. To alleviate this process and make it not only engaging but relatable as well for our community, all this year’s speakers and performers are Native.

“That’s the great thing about this year’s conference, too, is that we have these dynamic speakers, these interesting performers, all these great people that are coming to uplift our community, and they are all Native,” continued Tiedeman. “The community is going to be able to relate to everybody. The youth, because we want all students from 8^th graders to high school especially to attend this conference, they will able to relate to these speakers and performers. I think that is what’s so special about this year’s conference.

“We’ve had youth say to us, ‘when the Tribes bring in these outside experts to speak to us, we don’t really get to express our thoughts and feelings. It’s more like we are being talked at’. That won’t be the case with this year’s Wellness Conference. The content will be engaging and relatable. Also, we will have talking circles to end our day one session. There will be an adult talking circle and a youth talking circle, to make each age group feel more comfortable giving voice to their thoughts and feelings. With our talking circles people get to share how they feel and engage with one another.”

A Tribe Called Red is a DJ crew who blend instrumental hip hop and dubstep-influenced dance music with elements of First Nations music, particularly vocal chanting and drumming. They will be performing on Tuesday, May 12, from 2:15 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. We are hoping to have as many youth as possible attend their performance and take in the very unique, electronic powwow music. Parents please bring in your middle school and high school students after they are finished with school on that day. Those who arrive promptly before 3:00 p.m. will receive a CD by A Tribe Called Red and can have it signed by the members of the group.

As additional incentives to get community members to come out and participate in strengthening our resiliency, each attendee will receive a gift bag full of goodies. A signed copy of Gyasi Ross’s book of stories and poems titled Don’t Know Much About Indians, a storytelling DVD by Roger Fernandez, and a CD from A Tribe Called Red are just some of the goodies.

Our very own Rediscovery Program will also be present during the conference. They will be providing each of us with hands-on experience, teaching us how to make two traditional types of medicine: lip balm and smudge kits.

“The idea behind this year’s conference is learning all these ways of channeling your energy, your emotions and feelings, but basically your energy through arts, activities and culture,” says Alison Bowen, Family Haven Program Manager and fellow co-coordinator of the conference. “We know everyone has a lot going on. It may be good stuff or bad stuff or just stuff you feel overwhelmed by. We want you to witness first-hand and learn about all these different ways of expressing what you are going through. Like aerial performance! How many people have ever seen an aerial performer? I’ve never seen one. It’s exciting to say we will have an aerial performer showcasing her abilities and that just might open someone’s eyes to possibilities they hadn’t previously considered.”

Mark your calendars and set a reminder so that you don’t miss out on what is sure to be an exciting and uplifting learning atmosphere for the Tulalip community. The 3^rd Annual Wellness Conference is open to the entire Tulalip community, so long as they are 13 years or older.

“We want our tribal elders to be there. We want our tribal youth to be there,” said Tiedeman.

Hopefully the Orca Ballroom will be filled to capacity with our Tulalip tribal membership as we come together for two days full of Native speakers, presenters, and performers.

The following is the complete list of speakers, artists and performers who will be featured over the two-day Wellness Conference:

Gyasi Ross (Blackfeet Nation, Suquamish Nation). Author, lawyer, speaker and storyteller.
Tanaya Winder (Southern Ute, Pyramid Lake Paiute, and Duckwater Shoshone Nations. Performance poet and writer.
Red Eagle Soaring (multiple tribes represented Native youth theatre.
Matika Wilbur (Tulalip and Swinomish. Photographer, project 562.
Andrea Thompson (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa) .Cirque Artist.
Vaughn Eagle Bear (Rosebud Sioux, Colville Tribe). Comedian, actor and motivational speaker.
Roger Fernandez (Lower Elwha Band of Clallam Indians). Artist, storyteller and educator.
A Tribe Called Red (Grand River Mohawk, Nipissing First Nation, Cayuga First Nation). DJ crew, electric powwow.

Contact Micheal Rios, mrios@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov

Native Americans may lack access to health insurance in Montana

Report highlights the disparity in insurance access among Native communities

By S. Vagus, Live Insurance News

A new report from the Alliance for a Just Society, Indian People’s Action, and the Montana Organizing Project suggests that Native Americans may not have as much access to Montana’s health insurance exchange as they should. Approximately 6.5% of Montana’s population is comprised of Native Americans, with an estimated 1.7% of enrollees in the state’s health insurance exchange falling into this demographic. The report highlights barriers that exist in the state that may be preventing Native Americans from receiving medical care.

There are significant barriers blocking Native Americans from the coverage that they need

The report notes that access to insurance coverage does not guarantee quality medical care. According to the report, the delay in expanding the state’s Medicaid program has prevented many people from receiving the care that they need, as a significant portion of consumers cannot afford coverage offered through the state’s health insurance exchange. The report also notes that there has been a significant lack in outreach to Native American consumers, which means that these consumers are not being made aware of the services offered by the state’s insurance exchange.

Efforts are underway to improve access to health insurance

In the earliest days of the state’s insurance exchange, Native American organizations were not provided with grants from the federal government that would pay for insurance navigators. These navigators are meant to assist consumers in enrolling for health insurance coverage through a state exchange. The navigators also provide information concerning the provisions of the Affordable Care Act and can provide some insight on the availability of subsidies being offered by the federal government. Without navigators, Native communities were unable to access the information that these navigators were meant to provide. Now, however, certified application councilors are available to take on the role of navigators.

Expanded Medicaid system may be helpful

Montana is still planning to expand its Medicaid system, but this could take time. Implementing the expansion may ensure that more Native peoples have access to health insurance coverage, but outreach efforts will have to increase if the state wants to ensure that these people are even aware of the expansion. Without outreach, many Native consumers may not know that they are becoming eligible for health insurance through Medicaid.

Rapid City man awarded $10K grant to start Pine Ridge youth running camps

By John Lee McLaughlin, Rapid City Journal

James Pine, 23, goes on a run Friday afternoon in his southwest Rapid City neighborhood. Pine has been awarded a $10,000 grant to start a youth fitness camp this summer called Lakota Forever Running and Fitness in each of the eight districts of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. (Josh Morgan, Journal staff)

James Pine has his heart set on empowering the Oglala Lakota, both young and old.

And Pine, 23, of Rapid City, has been awarded a $10,000 grant to take his desire and run with it. He is one of 10 recipients of the Dreamstarter grant program, which is administered by Running Strong, an American Indian youth nonprofit based in Alexandria, Va.

Each of the 10 awardees received $10,000 to start youth camps promoting health and wellness across the nation. Each will work with a mentoring nonprofit to help implement their startup camps.

Pine, who works at Dakota Business Center delivering office supplies and installing office furniture, will be working with Dustin Martin, program director for Wings of America in Santa Fe, N.M.

Born and raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Pine knows firsthand the problems that people there deal with daily.

“There’s not much to do,” he said last week in a phone interview while he was at the Dreamstarter Academy in Washington, D.C. “There are a lot of bad habits. There’s a lot of suicide. There are a lot of drugs and alcohol, and there’s not much to turn to. On a daily basis, a lot of people are bored, and they want to hang out with their friends, and they do bad things.”

An avid runner, Pine said, “I just want to bring my people up. I just want to help them out. I want to be a mentor and a coach. I just want to help the youth, and not even just the youth. I want to help everybody, elders, too, old people, tall, small — anybody.”

This summer, Pine said, he will be starting a series of two-day youth camps, dubbed Lakota Forever Running and Fitness, in eight communities across the reservation. He hopes to start the camps in June, continuing through August.

Pine is a former state-qualifying cross-country and track runner for Pine Ridge High School.

“Running has helped me in a major way, and I don’t even know if I can put it into words, but it was just an awesome thing because when I was younger, growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation, I went through the hardships, just like everyone else,” he said.

Running Strong was co-founded by 1964 Olympic champion Billy Mills, an Oglala Lakota from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, who to date is the only American to win a gold medal in the Olympic 10,000-meter run.

“Billy Mills, he played an important role in my life,” Pine said. “He was kind of like a hero, just someone to look up to. He was like the glimmer of hope. You know, you see all these NBA stars and these people on TV, and none of them are Native American. Some people get it in their head: ‘Oh, I can never be that,’ but then you look at Billy Mills. He’s a national idol.”

Pine applied to the Dreamstarter Program with friend and colleague Martin. The duo met last summer at a Wings of America program that trained Pine and others to facilitate youth running and fitness camps.

“Immediately, James stepped into a leadership role and was a leader for those facilitators that came down from Pine Ridge,” Martin said. “It was obvious to me that they looked up to him, and they respected his guidance when he gave it. So when we had this opportunity to apply for this grant, it was a no-brainer for me.”

Pine’s father, Dale, has been a long-time supporter of Wings of America running and fitness programs, Martin said. Dale Pine has coached at Pine Ridge High School for more than 25 years.

He is a leading force of Team One Spirit, which facilitates running programs and raises funds for youth on the reservation. The team sent James Pine to run with four other Oglala Lakota runners in the New York City Marathon. The group is collectively called the Lakota Five. Pine finished the 26-mile, 385-yard race with a time of 3:52:31.

Partnering with Pine to start running camps at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is a natural transition from an already strong partnership, Martin said.

“Dale Pine has been a longtime advocate and helper of Wings of America, and I sort of see myself as the next generation of Wings,” he said. “In a lot of ways, I see James as the continuation of that legacy, you know, and myself included, so together, he and I can continue that legacy of Wings working in South Dakota, and particularly in Pine Ridge.”

Pine said Wings of America has granted him an additional $9,000 to start the Pine Ridge running camps, which he said will incorporate games, mentorship and wellness education, all the while promoting the sport of running.

“Everything is going to revolve around running and being healthy and living a good, natural life,” he said. “If you make a game out of it, it’s very interesting and fun to them, even though they will be running the whole time.”

Pine said he will coordinate with schools on the reservation to see what gym space is available for his camps, though there’s always the option of holding them outdoors. He said he will also be seeking sponsorships from local businesses.

Running “took me a lot of places, and it brought me to where I am now,” said Pine, who lives in Rapid City with his girlfriend and 1-year-old daughter. “I’m a dad now. I just changed my life around … I just feel obligated to help my people and give back to the community.”

America Is Trying to Fix a Mental Health Crisis That It Created

Lawmakers and advocates are trying to help Native American youths, who are dying in record numbers.

By Jamilah King, Takepart.com

Julian Juan was only 13 when he noticed the scars. A high school freshman on the Tohono O’Odham Reservation, about an hour and a half southwest of Tucson, Arizona, Juan had a tight-knit group of seemingly gregarious friends. But even in southern Arizona’s desert heat, some of those friends wore long-sleeved shirts. Once, a friend’s sleeve rode up high enough to reveal scarred flesh.

“When I asked about it, they would say, ‘Oh, I cut myself doing yard work,’ or ‘I got caught in a fence,’ ” Juan remembered. He persistently pushed them for the truth. “They would say they were having these thoughts and would never fully explain,” he said. He could tell the people closest to him were suffering. And he wanted to do something about it.

Today, Juan is a 23-year-old junior at the University of New Mexico who serves as a youth cabinet member in the National Congress of American Indians, the largest advocacy organization for Native Americans in the country, where he’s worked with a broad coalition of young people to put mental health among tribal elders’ top concerns.

“This issue is really taboo for people in my community,” he said. “They don’t like to talk about it, and it does hurt to talk about, but it’s not going away.”

There’s a growing mental health crisis among Native American youths, and it’s being driven by poverty, violence, and lack of resources. It’s difficult to definitively assess how pervasive the problem is, partly because cultural stigma about mental illness makes it difficult for experts to access many Native American communities. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the second leading cause of death among Native Americans between the ages of 15 and 34—a rate that’s two and a half times higher than the national average for that age group. The crisis appears to be afflicting Native American communities across the country.

On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, nearly 1,000 suicide attempts were reported between 2004 and 2013. In roughly the same period, the local hospital has apparently treated more than 240 people under age 19 who planned or tried to commit suicide.

The crisis is getting national attention. Earlier this month, First Lady Michelle Obama touted the Generation Indigenous Native Youth Challenge, a White House–backed initiative with the U.S. Department of the Interior. The initiative has the lofty goal of “removing the barriers that stand between Native youth and their opportunity to succeed.”

The first lady outlined a “long history of systemic discrimination and abuse,” ranging from 19th-century laws that forcibly removed Native Americans from their land to the early-20th-century boarding schools that meticulously extinguished many tribes’ language and culture. Those injustices set the tone for the dire situation in many of today’s tribal communities. Here are the statistics, according to the American Psychiatric Association: Native Americans are more than twice as likely to live in poverty than the rest of the U.S. population. They’re also nearly twice as likely as to suffer psychological distress, usually in the form of depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Given this history, we shouldn’t be surprised at the challenges that kids in Indian Country are facing today,” the first lady said. “And we should never forget that we played a role in this. Make no mistake about it—we own this.”

In November 2014, a U.S. Justice Department task force, led by retired Democratic U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, submitted a report to Attorney General Eric Holder outlining several actions that could help address the trauma experienced by Native American children. The task force recommended that a Native American Affairs Office be fully staffed within the White House Domestic Policy Council and more federal money be spent on funding tribal criminal and civil prosecutions.

People working in tribal communities are searching for answers. Sheri Lesansee is program manager of New Mexico’s Native American Suicide Prevention Clearinghouse. She says that understanding the diversity of 22 tribal communities is key to accessing their needs. “The outreach and technical assistance really does have to be tailored to meet the needs of that community,” Lesansee told TakePart, pointing to therapists who are well versed in the concepts of generational trauma and familiar with tribal family dynamics. At the same time, Lesanee said it’s important to focus on the tools tribal communities already possess, such as endurance. “We believe—as Native people—we are strong and resilient, and we emphasize that in prevention efforts,” she said.

Jennifer Nanez, a senior program therapist at the University of New Mexico’s Native American Behavioral Health Program, said overt racism continues to play an important role in kids’ lives. “A lot of times the mainstream perspective is that Natives can’t seem to get out of this rut—and that it’s just a characteristic of an American Indian when it’s not,” Nanez said, before echoing the first lady’s sentiments. “[This] is the result of hundreds of years of oppression, and our kids are dealing with it.”

As proof, Nanez pointed to an instance from January when a group of Native American children attending a minor-league hockey game in South Dakota were accosted by a group of white men in a skybox above their seats. The men allegedly dumped beer and yelled racial slurs at the kids, and the story eventually made headlines. “They were getting drunk, and around the third quarter they were talking crap to our kids and throwing beer down on some of them, including our staff and students…telling our students to go back to the rez,” one chaperone wrote on Facebook.

New Mexico is one of a handful of states that have tried to address the problem through legislation. In 2011, the state legislature passed a bill that, in part, created the Native American Suicide Prevention Clearinghouse, which does outreach and consultation for various tribal communities.

Even Native Americans who don’t live in tribal communities feel the impact of the problem. Christian Redbird, 22, was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and has struggled with mental illness while attending community college. Members of her family suffered from undiagnosed mental illness. No one in her family had ever gone to therapy, and instead self-medicated with alcohol, she said. Redbird, the first person in her family to go to college, realized she didn’t have the familial and social networks to help her thrive.

“I work as a server in a restaurant and make more money than anyone in my family does,” she said. “It’s hard for me to know what steps to take when I don’t know what they are.”

Tulalip Community Support Group for Trauma Survivors, Begins April 14

Diabetes Day at the Karen I Fryberg Health Clinic, April 14

3rd Annual Prevention Conference, May 11-12, Tulalip Resort Casino

WA Statewide Suicide Prevention Plan Community Meeting, April 22

The medical marijuana business could save Native American reservations

By Jacqueline Keeler, Quartz

At the very first Tribal Marijuana Conference held last weekend in Tulalip, WA, the former chairman of the Moapa Paiute tribe, William Anderson, tall and dignified and walking with a cane, explained to me what brought him: “I was just laying in bed in pain. I couldn’t get up, I couldn’t get up to go to the bathroom or go to the kitchen because I was in so much pain.”

An infection in his foot had spread to his spine and deteriorated the bone, exposing nerves. Doctors replaced the bone with titanium steel. For two years, the infection, even with prescription creams and antibiotics, kept coming back. The Indian Health Service recommended amputation of his foot.

“I just prayed to the Great Creator, ‘Please, help me with my pain. Please, help me get up so I can function as a normal human being.’”

Then he remembered a documentary he had seen years earlier about medical marijuana, and how it was used by cancer patients for pain relief. He ordered a topical cannabis ointment, and when he applied it he felt immediate relief.

The conference brought together some 75 tribal representatives, along with hundreds from the state and federal level in addition to cannabis industry leaders on the Tulalip tribe’s $200 million resort and casino in Washington state. This was in response to a Department of Justice memo directing US attorneys nationwide not to prosecute federally-recognized tribes conducting marijuana-related businesses on reservation land—so long as they meet nine criteria, including the prevention of criminal elements from profiting from marijuana sales, and keeping cannabis products away from minors.

While most of the presentations at the conference addressed the legal, infrastructural, and financial concerns of running a marijuana business on the reservation, Anderson’s story highlights the incredible medical needs faced by many tribal members.

Native Americans have the highest rates of high-risk drinking and suicide of any American ethnic group, according to research from the NIH and CDC, respectively. In the past two decades, opioid deaths and cancer rates have continued to climb. On Anderson’s reservation, tribal members’ health had been harmed by a coal power plant that blew coal ash through their community; its waste ponds poisoning their ground water. They fought back and shut down the plant, but this story is all too common throughout “Indian Country;” Native American communities pay a heavy price, both in regards to environmental and public health, for US energy development.

Amanda Reiman, manager of marijuana law and policy at the Drug Policy Alliance, assured tribal leaders at the conference that cannabis could actually help Native American communities battling addiction. A recent study (paywall) found that marijuana acts not as a “gateway drug,” as it is often characterized, but as a less harmful replacement for alcohol. In states that have legalized medical marijuana, the researchers found that the number of alcohol-related traffic fatalities per year decreased by as much as 11%. It is estimated that, in the United States, alcohol-related deaths total 88,000 per year. The statistics are even more dire for Native American communities: nearly 11.7% of Native American deaths are alcohol-related, compared to 3.3% for all Americans.

Another study published just last year in JAMA Internal Medicine found that opioid mortality rates were lower by 25% in states that had legalized medical marijuana. Native Americans have seen opioid-related (prescription painkiller) deaths increase since 2000 to a rate that is 3 times that of African-Americans and Hispanics, according to the CDC. Nationally, these drugs now kill more people than car crashes.

As the medical establishment has reigned in opioid over-prescription, patients who had become addicted to painkillers have increasingly turned to heroin—once associated with big cities, but now a booming trade in poorer, rural areas. Last week, the Saginaw Chippewa tribe in Michigan banished two tribal members for trafficking in heroin. On Feb. 20, a couple from the Lummi tribe in Washington state were sentenced to prison for conspiracy to distribute heroin and methamphetamine.

“Heroin and methamphetamine trafficking has no place in any of our communities, least of all on tribal lands,” said acting US attorney for the Western district of Washington, Annette L. Hayes. “Last week I convened a heroin summit to focus community resources on battling what has become a growing epidemic of opioid abuse. I commend the work of our tribal partners, the Lummi, to lead in the effort to prevent heroin use and overdose deaths.”

Meanwhile, yet another study made headlines after finding marijuana to be 114 times less deadly than alcohol. Alcohol, followed by heroin and cocaine, was found to be the most dangerous recreational drug. Tobacco came in fourth, and cannabis a distant last.

With all the research and evidence regarding the safety and innocuousness of marijuana piling up, it is no wonder that the federal government has taken baby steps to revise its once harsh prohibition of the drug. For example, a US district judge in Sacramento, CA, heard the final arguments on Feb. 11 on a hearing regarding the constitutionality of the 1970 Controlled Substances Act that classified marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug. This is the first reconsideration of the act’s claims that marijuana has “no accepted medical use”—a rather foolish assertion considering that that 23 states and the District of Columbia now permit the distribution and consumption of medical marijuana. She is expected to rule within the next week.

Still, many Native Americans, long used to fighting addiction in their communities, see the opportunity for the sale of marijuana on their lands as yet another Trojan horse delivered by the US government. They worry about its implementation.

Troy Eid, chair of president Obama’s Indian Law and Order Commission was cautious. “I think it is very good for tribes to look at and think about how they might want to influence changes in the federal law,” he said. “Having said that, there are no changes in federal law here. I can tell you as a former US attorney, the nine different criteria that they laid out are not sufficient to provide protections to tribes or tribal members, tribal citizens. So, you are really rolling the dice.”

For Native American communities, the issue of marijuana legalization represents both unique challenges and prospects for success. It hinges on careful negotiation with multiple federal agencies, from the DEA to the IRS. The unique relationship federally-recognized tribes have with the US as “domestic dependent nations”—a designation that recognizes both the inherent sovereignty of pre-existing indigenous nations, but also reflects the power of the US to limit the exercise of that sovereignty—is a careful dance that tribes have had to conduct with the most powerful nation in the world for decades; and this new opportunity may serve as a long-awaited chance to restructure that relationship, just as casino-gaming did a generation ago.

“This issue was a historic moment for the United States,” Robert Odawi Porter of Odawi Law PLLC, a former president of the Seneca Nation of New York, and one of the organizers of the conference explained to me, “and what the Justice Department did was to invite ‘Indian Country’ to have a historical moment. No different than any other major decision our ancestors have had to make. Tribal leaders are now going to have the same opportunity to think through whether legalizing marijuana was a good thing.”

The conference ended with tribal leaders agreeing to meet again in Las Vegas on Mar. 12 at the Reservation Economic Summit to vote on a charter for a new inter-tribal cannabis trade organization.

Douglas Berman, a presenter at the conference, and a professor of law at Ohio State University, noted, “There are relatively few industries with so many novel dimensions to it that haven’t already gotten commercialized to the point it is difficult for new players to enter.”

“I think tribes can be first to market here. I really do,” said Hilary Bricken, a cannabis attorney in Washington state, and another of the organizers of the conference. She urged tribes to consider entering the marijuana banking services industry. Although Bank of America has agreed to handle Washington state’s marijuana tax income, only small credit unions have taken on lending to legal, licensed marijuana businesses. A few tribes have gotten involved as payday lenders, but full realization of reservations as “off-shore banking” magnates on the mainland US has not yet occurred. A niche banking services market like marijuana could provide the impetus.

Les Parks, vice chairman of the Tulalip tribe’s board of directors, shared a video of a local Seattle television-news report on the medical marijuana extract CBD, which is used to relieve epileptic seizures and hold big dreams for tribes in the pharmaceutical industry. “We can lead this country in CBD drug development and be the next big pharmaceutical company,” he said.

A number of Native Americans came with cannabis company partners to the conference. William Anderson was one of them. He is working with Strainz, a medical cannabis products and services company.

“This cannot just be about making a quick buck, but about economic development and being more independent, not dependent on the government, which I don’t like but is unfortunately the reality for our people,” Anderson explained.

As a former tribal chairman, he’s had experience doing just that. Under his leadership, his tribe not only got rid of the coal plant, but opened the first solar plant on any reservation in the country, and has since been approved to build a second.

But in the end Anderson is a believer in the power of medical marijuana to help Native American people deal with chronic pain. “I’m really grateful to be here today, to just talk and to shake hands with people,” he said. “This is what I want to bring to Indian people out there. To show that there are other ways to get help.”

You can follow Jacqueline on Twitter at @jfkeeler. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.