INDIAN STUDENTS' USE OF METH DROPS SHARPLY

However, Rate Remains More Than Twice That Of All High
Schoolers

Gazette State Bureau HELENA - Montana's American Indian high school
students report using the drug methamphetamine at more than twice the
rate reported by all Montana students.

However, meth use among Indians has fallen dramatically since 1999,
when more than one-fourth of Indian high school students on Montana's
reservations reported using meth at least once.

Almost 11 percent of Indian high school students on Montana's seven
reservations reported using meth at least once in their lives in the
2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a routine questionnaire distributed
to high school students around the state every two years. For
American Indian students in Montana's urban areas, the rate was 10.5
percent.

That compares with just 4.6 percent of all Montana high school
students who reported using meth, a highly addictive drug.

Statewide results of the survey were announced in September, but
information specific to Indian students became available only recently.

Significant declineDespite the higher rate of meth use among Indians,
Superintendent of Public Instruction Linda McCulloch said she was
pleased by the significant decline since 1999.

Back then, figures show, nearly 27 percent of reservation high school
students said they had used meth at least once. More than 24 percent
of Indian students off reservations also reported using the drug.

Today, those figures have fallen by more than half, said McCulloch,
whose office conducts and tallies the survey. She attributed the fall
to many factors, including widespread public advertising campaigns.

"I think it's very positive," she said. "I think it says a lot out
about our students paying attention to information they get in
school, information they get with the Montana Meth Project campaign
and on our reservations."

Methamphetamine is a stimulant that can be made from certain cold
medicines and other common chemicals. Although the drug can be made
locally, newer laws limiting access to cold medicines have begun to
shift production of the drug out-of-state.

In September 2005, software entrepreneur Tom Siebel, who owns a ranch
in Montana, started the Montana Meth Project. The effort features
gritty advertisements showcasing the negative effects of meth use.

McCulloch and several Indian leaders and educators said Friday that
they thought the higher rates of meth use among Indians had several
causes, principally poverty.

Social problems"Montana's reservation communities have a higher
poverty rate, extreme unemployment," said state Sen. Carol Juneau,
D-Browning, a former educator at Browning Public Schools. "If you
look at any group in those concentrated areas of poverty, you are
going to have more social problems."

Poor families often can't afford addiction treatment, even if such
services were available, she said.

Rep. Norma Bixby, D-Lame Deer, said another explanation is the higher
high school dropout rate on many reservations. Those dropouts don't
just disappear, she said. They still have friends in high school, and
if they become addicted to meth, they may start sharing the drug
with students still attending class. Bixby also said the lack of
resources on reservations makes it harder for kids recovering form
addiction to stay clean.

Bixby, who is also tribal education director for the Northern
Cheyenne Tribe, said schools might have a greater role to play by
staying open after school hours for family recreation, giving kids a
safe, constructive place to be.

"A lot of this happens after school," she said.