METH CALLED AN EPIDEMIC AMONG AMERICAN INDIANS

WALKER, Minn. - American Indians are fighting methamphetamine while
tribal courts are battling for recognition, officials with the U.S.
Justice Department told a national gathering of tribal and state
leaders Saturday.

"Methamphetamine has become an epidemic in our Indian Country," said
Jan Morley, assistant U.S. attorney based in Washington, D.C. "We're
losing our children to this drug war, and we need to take our children
back."

The Justice Department in Indian country was the focus of the final
day of the annual Governors' Interstate Indian Council hosted by the
Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. The two-day event brought together some of
the 36 states that have created councils to serve as a liaison between
tribal and state governments.

Morley, who grew up on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North
Dakota, said Indians have too few resources spread across too much
geography -- especially in rural areas -- to combat drugs.

"We need to start pooling our state, federal and tribal resources,"
Morley said. "We need to make (drugs) our war."

Another major issue is homeland security, she said. Some tribes don't
have the funds to police their borders with Canada or Mexico.

Nationally, there was a significant jump in major crime in Indian
country in 1999-2000, and a slight increase in the years since then,
said Keith Hanzell, FBI special agent based out of Bemidji in
north-central Minnesota.

The FBI opened 1,887 new cases in Indian country in 2001, according to
the most recent figures available. That includes 615 cases of sexual
abuse of children and 433 assaults. It also includes 184 death
investigations.

Hanzell said 73 percent of the FBI money spent in Indian country for
2003 went to training, mainly for tribal law enforcement.

Although the relationship between police on and off reservations is
growing stronger, there continues to be gray areas with jurisdiction,
especially when it involves tribal courts, the speakers said.

There are more than 280 tribal justice systems in the United States,
including Alaska, but they're not seen as equal to state court
systems, said Vince Knight, executive director of the National Tribal
Justice Resource Center.

"They don't trust our justice," Knight said.

Tribal courts do not have jurisdiction over non-Indians, but even that
limited power appears fragile under today's U.S. Supreme Court, he
said.

The Interstate Indian Council was created in 1949 by state governors
to improve relationships with Indians and provide a liaison in
creating public policy with lawmakers. This year's conference included
representatives from Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky,
Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota,
Oklahoma and Virginia.