INDIAN TEEN METH USE DROPS DRAMATICALLY

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 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 the state'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 Indian
students in urban areas, the rate was 10.5 percent.

That compares to 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 only recently became available.

Despite the higher rate of meth use on reservations, Superintendent
of Public Instruction Linda McCulloch said she was pleased by the
figures because they show a 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
decrease to many factors, including widespread public advertising
campaigns.

"I think it's very positive," she said. "I think it says a lot 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 powerful and addictive 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 of 2005, software entrepreneur Tom Siebel, who owns a
ranch in Montana, started the Montana Meth Project. The effort
features gritty newspaper, television, radio and billboard
advertisements showcasing the negative effects of meth use, such as
rotting teeth and compulsive skin picking.

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

"Montana's reservation communities have a higher poverty rate,
extreme unemployment," said state Sen. Carol Juneau, D-Browning and a
former educator in the 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 drug 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 from addiction to stay clean.

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

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