BANDS TAKE AIM AT DRUG DEALING

KELOWNA -- Indian bands throughout the Okanagan are rearranging their
budgets to take what they say will be a serious stab at combating drugs and
dealers on First Nations lands.

A general assembly of the Okanagan Nation Alliance was held Tuesday at
Sensisyusten school in Westbank with the intention of putting a drug
strategy referendum to its members. "We're prepared to put a significant
amount of money into counselling, enforcement or whatever needs to be
done," said Westbank First Nation Chief Robert Louie. "It will be in the
hundreds of thousands. We're already revising our budgets." The meeting was
held in the wake of a triple homicide on the Penticton Indian reserve in
November. It included bands from the Okanagan and Coleville, Wash., as well
as school district officials and representatives of the RCMP, Interior
Health and Okanagan University College.

"This is the start of developing a short- and long-term strategy," said
Chief Stewart Phillip of the Penticton band. "We want to come up with a
comprehensive and enforceable strategy with input from elders, children,
parents and the organizations the children come in contact with.

"The chiefs will meet to analyse the input, and then we plan to have an
(Indian) nationwide referendum which would provide authorization to
undertake action." He said no date has been set for the referendum. "On the
one hand, there is a tremendous urgency," he said, "but we need to allow
time to develop a strategy that will succeed." Louie said the RCMP has
pledged to step up enforcement on Indian lands as well as starting drug
education courses in Grade 5 classes.

"They will be dealing with the problem in more aggressive ways," said
Louie. "We have to find solutions to drug use and the drug trade, although
this problem knows no borders.

"The RCMP have told us that the drug problem is up 42 per cent in just the
last year. The increase in cocaine, heroin and trafficking is between 148
per cent and 200 per cent. These are staggering figures." Phillip said the
Okanagan Nation has been shaken by the Penticton killings.

"A tragedy that occurred on the Penticton Indian band resulted in the lost
lives of three young men and one that is in jail and two who are recovering
at home from such trauma," said Phillip.