Tribes across nation confront horrors of meth

By Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic

PERIDOT - There is something haunting about the hillside house in this windswept Apache community on the ruddy mesas east of Globe: It is the memory of a young man, David Dudley, beaten to death at a meth and booze party on a January night in 2005.

The entryway is a photographic shrine to the 20-year-old who dreamed of becoming an X-ray technician.

"We just kind of made it David's wall," explains the father, Dennis Dudley. "We light candles every time we come home."

Mary Jane Dudley sits in the living room, surrounded by half-finished Apache baskets. For a long time after her son's death, she couldn't find the will to weave. Now, she performs the ancient craft to lose herself in memories.

"From the time I wake up to the time I go to bed is when I think about him," she says. "I haven't stopped crying."

Police reports say David was punched, kicked and bashed with a beer bottle, then dragged into a wash and left to die. Dennis blames meth. He walks outside to a front-yard ramada. Beneath the roof, a large mound of dirt is covered with silk flowers.

"I didn't know where to put him, so we buried him out here," Dudley whispers into a desert breeze. "We put this here to remind the community there has to be something done against drugs."

'Crisis in nation'

Like high desert wildfire, methamphetamine is sweeping through Indian country, tearing families apart.

From the Gila River community south of Phoenix to the Navajo Nation, the drug known as "glass" has become public enemy No. 1 on many reservations, fueled by severe poverty, alcoholism and boredom that afflicts most of the nation's 571 federally recognized tribes.

"Status quo is a life six years shorter than any other American group," San Carlos Apache Chairwoman Kathy Kitcheyan told the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs during a February hearing. "(Indians are) 318 percent more likely to die from diabetes and 670 percent more likely to die from alcoholism. It's 63 babies born in my tribe last year addicted to methamphetamine, and this is just one tribe. Nationally, Indian country is under attack from crystal meth."

"It's probably almost reached epidemic proportions," agrees Joe Garcia, president of the National Congress of American Indians and governor of New Mexico's Ohkay Owingeh. "It's crisis mode. Not just our crisis. It's a crisis in the nation."

Anecdotes tell of extent

Meth addiction exploded so rapidly among indigenous tribes, and record keeping is so sporadic, that no comprehensive statistics are available. But anecdotes abound:

• On the Navajo Reservation this week, an 81-year-old medicine woman was arrested on suspicion of dealing meth with her daughter and granddaughter. Ninety-four percent of the tribal members who responded to a recent poll described the drug as a severe problem.

• At the Gila River Indian Community, tradition counselors oversee "talking circles" where addicts pass an eagle feather and sing native songs as part of spiritual therapy. The tribes also conduct anti-drug powwows and are building a $13 million residential center for modern treatment.

• In New Mexico, the Ohkay Owingeh tribe is reviving the ancient practice of banishment to remove meth dealers.

• In North Carolina, the Eastern Band of Cherokees has a hotline to report dealers and to announce regular anti-drug rallies.

Despite such efforts, Native American officials nationwide report a meth-induced surge of violence, theft, juvenile sex and drug babies. Federal authorities say foreign narco cartels are now targeting tribal lands as distribution beachheads. U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has scheduled a hearing on the scourge next week before the Indian Affairs committee.

• At Wyoming's Wind River Reservation, 25 tribal members were busted last May in connection with a drug ring.

Seeking help

Young Shoshones and Arapahos were viewed as a fresh market by cartels, says Jeffrey Sweetin, regional special agent in charge for Drug Enforcement Administration. "We had an organization headed by Mexican drug traffickers who specifically targeted the Wind River Reservation," Sweetin adds. "Young kids get free dope, and after a few times they'll grow into a user population. . . . There's an entire generation of Native Americans vanishing."

As a result, even tribal leaders who might otherwise distrust outsiders are seeking help. In Arizona, DEA agents work with reservation police. Indian health care officials clamor for funding to pay for meth babies and stabbing victims. Social services directors plead for treatment programs.

Still, some tribes are making headway. On the San Carlos Reservation, leaders criminalized meth, which was not an illegal drug under arcane tribal codes. Hand-painted placards warn against drug use along reservation highways. A new prevention program will stress Apache traditions.

Yet meth has caught up with alcohol as the substance of choice, and drug babies are now common. Social services Director Terry Ross says the most recent infant was born without feet to a 14-year-old. "We don't have the resources," he adds, shrugging helplessly.

Carlos Guezada-Gomez, director of health services in San Carlos, says unemployment and poverty have caused a "cultural brokenness," but the Ndee, or people, have not given up.

"The community is really being annihilated if we don't go back and have people center themselves and really feel good about who they are as Apaches," he adds.