LUMMI LEADER'S HAD IT WITH DRUGS

Sick Of Substance Abuse Ravaging The Tribe, New Chairman Ready To 'Clean It Up'

ON THE LUMMI RESERVATION -- Angry drug dealers rape a woman who owes them
money.

The lifeless body of a forlorn drug addict hangs from a tree.

And more than a dozen babies are born addicted to drugs in as many months.

At Indian reservations across the state, where Native Americans are
struggling with an ongoing plague of substance abuse, these are not unusual
occurrences.

A confidential FBI intelligence report found widespread use and production
of illicit drugs on 19 Indian reservations around the state.

But on the Lummi Reservation north of Bellingham -- where this particular
listing of horror happened -- a new leader has declared the eradication of
drugs to be a matter of homeland security and drug dealers to be the "evil
axis."

Just three weeks ago, FBI agents and Lummi police officers raided homes
here, seizing drugs, guns and money and arresting five people for
conspiring to distribute cocaine, a federal felony.

If the tribal members involved are convicted, they face expulsion from the
tribe and banishment forever from the reservation, said Darrell Hillaire,
the Lummi Nation's new chairman.

"The people have spoken," Hillaire said. "Clean it up. Get it done. We're
tired of talk."

Hillaire has mobilized tribal government to make drug and alcohol
eradication the top priority.

The new initiative includes tough enforcement in schools and tribal
housing, as well as plans to build a new inpatient drug-treatment facility.

"We have empathy for those that are on drugs, those that are addicted and
want a way out," Hillaire said.

"But we are really ticked off by these dealers who knowingly hurt families
and put our children at risk."

Crime Syndicates Involved

Cruising along the main road of the "res," Lummi police Chief Gary James'
unmarked car passes a series of small white crosses -- each one marking a
fatal accident.

In some instances, pedestrians strung out on their drug of choice have been
killed along the road; sometimes it was the driver who was drunk.

James, a 14-year-veteran of Lummi Law and Order, turns into the Mckenzie
Housing Project -- a hot spot for the illicit drug trade.

He points out homes where there have been problems -- places his officers
watch.

"We work closely with the FBI," said James. "We constantly share information."

Last year, information gleaned from people such as James resulted in a
confidential FBI intelligence report outlining the use of illicit drugs on
reservations in Washington.

It found that the majority of reservations report the use of speed;
one-third report the use of crack cocaine; and several report the use of
heroin, abuse of prescription drugs and the presence of clandestine meth labs.

The majority of reservations report "Hispanic involvement in retail
distribution" and several report Hispanic involvement in wholesale
distribution and trafficking, according to a summary of the report.

Federal agents have long been investigating the flow of drugs from Mexico
to the Yakima area, where Hispanic family crime syndicates distribute the
drugs.

One-quarter of the reservations report family-centered organizations at the
street level.

"The blood-is-thicker-than-water maxim is alive and well on each
reservation and is a significant obstacle for law enforcement," said one
federal agent with years of experience in investigating drug trafficking.

All those factors came into play in the big bust three weeks ago here at
the Lummi reservation.

A longtime member of the Lummi community described in court papers only as
a "concerned citizen" provided key information to a detective with Lummi
Law and Order.

That information helped investigators uncover the alleged link between
reservation cocaine-dealing and an accused wholesale cocaine trafficker
named Manuel Padilla.

Police presume Padilla, who has family in the Yakima area, obtained the
cocaine there.

Padilla was arrested and faces a federal drug conspiracy charge.

James said he anticipates further cooperation with the FBI in the ongoing
effort to clean up the reservation.

As his vehicle pulls out of the Mckenzie project, it passes a sign that reads:

"Keep our community safe. Hands off drugs and alcohol. Healthy Spirits."

A Move To Restore The Culture

Hillaire, the tribal chairman, is not out to simply punish drug dealers.

"It's not just about this drug bust," he said. "There were four children
found in these homes (raided by police). One was 13 months old and another
was a girl under 16 -- the mother of that baby.

"What do we do with these children?

That's why the tribe's new initiative, called "Healthy Spirits," is so
important, he said, because it "will look at everything that leads to healing."

Tribal health and human services specialist Laverne Lane-Oreio believes the
loss of traditional Lummi culture has allowed the insidious culture of
addiction to fill the vacuum.

When Lane-Oreio's grandparents were kids, she said, the attitude of the
U.S. government was "kill the Indian and save the man."

Indian children were forcibly removed from their homes and sent away to
boarding schools where their hair was shorn and they were punished for
speaking their native tongues.

"It literally stripped us of our identity and language," she said. "When
you don't know who you are, the tendency is to self-medicate the pain and
loss and grief."

So the Lummi have set out to revive the language and restore the culture.

At the Mckenzie housing complex, language classes are taught at a new
community center.

The tribal school also offers classes in language and culture. And a
zero-tolerance policy is in place there toward the use of alcohol and drugs.

Chief Judge Theresa Poulcy is now working with the first people in the
tribe's new drug court.

"Drug court is being built on a cultural model and acts as an extended
family," she said.

Key members of a tribal team dedicated to keeping the offender sober attend
the hearings.

"There's a spiritual aspect to long-term sobriety," the judge said. "The
federal government worked so hard to eliminate native spirituality."

But tribal drug court works to inculcate it.

Poulcy wants those standing before her to "figure out who they are. Who
their parents are, and their grandparents, great-grandparents and great,
great-grandparents."

Knowing where you come from is a common theme among the tribal cultures of
Puget Sound.

If you sit down over a pot of coffee with a Coast Salish Indian, it's
likely that you'll hear the whole family tree before too long.

At Lummi, the dream is that someday in the not-too-distant future, today's
infants will be able to have that discussion with each other in their
native tongue, having grown up without ever seeing their parents strung out
on drugs or addicted to alcohol.