An alcoholism epidemic among the Lakota Sioux

Killing Time at Pine RidgeTHE Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota, the site of the battle of Wounded Knee, contains one of the poorest counties in America; and every one of its residents is affected, in some way, by alcoholism. So says Robert Brave Heart senior, one of the leaders of Red Cloud, a private Catholic school founded in 1888 by Jesuits at the request of Red Cloud, a chief of the Oglala Lakota, the tribe of Crazy Horse. Most of his people, says Mr Brave Heart, cannot drink alcohol in moderation. He thinks he is one of them. After bad experiences with booze as a teenager, he has not touched alcohol for 40 years.Alcohol has been banned in Pine Ridge since 1889, except for a few months in the 1970s. Yet two-thirds of adults on the reservation are alcoholics; alcohol-fuelled domestic violence is rampant; and one in four babies born on the reservation is irreversibly damaged by fetal-alcohol syndrome, a range of neurological defects caused by mothers drinking alcohol during pregnancy.One of the main sources of alcohol for the reservation's residents is Whiteclay, a tiny hamlet of 11 residents just a short walk away...Continue reading
Click here to read full news..