Posted on 02/09/2012 12:23:56 PM PST by Osage Orange
Oglala Sioux Tribe sues Whiteclay stores, beer makers, distributors
LINCOLN, Neb. -- The Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota is suing the owners of four beer stores in Whiteclay, plus the beer distributors and manufacturers serving those stores.
The tribe's lawsuit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court of Nebraska, lists more than a dozen defendants, including beer manufacturers Anheuser-Busch and Miller Brewing Co. The 10-page lawsuit alleges the beer distributors and manufacturers knowingly provided alcohol to the four beer stores, which, in turn, sold alcohol to residents of South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where alcohol is banned.
It alleges the defendants violated the tribe's alcohol ban as well as Nebraska law by providing alcohol to the reservation's residents, knowing those residents would transport the alcohol into the reservation and resell much of that beer to other reservation residents.
The lawsuit also alleges the owners of the four beer stores sold alcohol to intoxicated people and accepted sex, pornographic photos and food assistance vouchers in exchange for beer.
"Alcohol is a devastating drug to the Lakota people," the lawsuit states. "The vast majority of beer consumed in the town of Pine Ridge and the (reservation) is sold in Whiteclay establishments."
Tribal representatives and members of Nebraskans for Peace, which has long urged shutting down the beer stores in Whiteclay, planned to hold a 1 p.m. news conference Thursday in the Capitol Rotunda to discuss the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges the four beer stores sold nearly 5 million cans of beer in 2010, up from 4.3 million cans in 2004. The tribe is seeking monetary compensation "for all damages it has suffered in the past and is reasonably likely to suffer in the future caused by the actions of the defendants and as established at trial."
"The (tribe) does not have the resources to properly address families which have been torn apart by alcohol," the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit cites numerous statistics regarding the impact of the sale of alcohol at Whiteclay on reservation residents, including: one in four children being born with either fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol spectrum disorder; an average reservation life expectancy of between 45 and 52 years; and a teen suicide rate that is 150 percent higher than the American average.
"The devastating and horrible effects of alcohol on the (Oglala Sioux Tribe) and the Lakota people cannot be overstated," the lawsuit states.
It’s the CIA, in an attempt to control the minds of adult Native Americans by plying them with alcohol.
It’s the CIA, in an attempt to control the minds of adult Native Americans by plying them with alcohol.
I got my wife to hold the nail but then it only worked once and I am single now.
I grew up in South Dakota. I saw the mess they made for themselves first-hand; just like you. They have opportunities that people like you and I will never have - yet, everything that goes wrong is someone else’s fault.
Free Education, garranteed placement into any field of study they wish to pursue - free!! Small business set-asides, programs that we could never qualify for - when is the last time you met an American Indian doctor, lawyer, engineer, programmer or business-owner? In my 22 yrs of experience, I have met exactly 1. I still keep in contact with him, American Indian, ex-Marine and Jewish; I fear he was truly one of a kind.
IOW, American Indians are prone to alcoholism...based on their innate inability to metabolize alcohol as others do. My own personal anecdotal evidence bears this out.
I think there are other studies...that are equally interesting...where carb's and fat's aren't metabolized the same way as white people...when studying diabetic Indians.
And diabetic Indians is a huge problem, as is alcoholism........
FWIW-
Before you blast someone, please have the intelligence to know what you are talking about. Mormons are permitted caffeine, they drink Coke and soda like anyone else. They are told to abstain from Coffee and certain tea products.
Most will abstain from alcoholic drinks, which is entirely up to them. However, unlike Baptists - Mormons hold the term "free agency" to be a basic tennant. Just because they chose not to partake, does not mean they forbid you from chosing. You are free to buy beer/wine/coffee and tobacco; it's YOUR choice, not theirs.
Are they on the res? [Wikis] No, apparently they’re not. Sucks for you, tribe. Enforce your own dry laws.
I would love to know the names of the lead attorneys, and their firm affiliation on this as the wording is nearly identical to that used by the the ambulance chasers that went after the tobacco companies.
You know very well that if these merchants refused to sell to the tribe members it would be considered discriminatory.
What a hell this country is becoming.
Well of course....it is.
: )
The White Man tried prohibition early in the last century. It failed miserably. Why do the Indians expect it to work any better on their communist reservations.
Since the land on typical Indian reservation is owned by “the people”, there is no incentive to develop the land (since there is no private real estate). The result is poverty and misery, along with the Indian equivalent of Russian vodka-chugging. Yes, they’re all drinking bootleg beer to forget their misery, IMO.
And what better way to forget how this stuff is all their fault than to sue the crap out of people providing goods that Indians actually want?
Attorney Tom White in Omaha. http://whitejorgensen.com/About_Us/Meet_Our_Team/Thomas_White/index.asp
HE looks fine, has tried some product liability and civil rights cases, which this might ultimately turn into. I’m not an atty, but would not be surprised if they went after beer as a dangerous substance. Which, of course, it is for anyone and everyone who overindulges.
Anyone else have ideas about how the case might be tried? I think it’s pretty interesting.
See post #54
Any thoughts?
After having watched what was done to the tobacco industry, I think it will go through.
I still think it is absolutely asinine and should not be permitted, but who am I, other than the poor schlub that will wind up paying for it, because the beer companies will just pass the costs along to the consumer, just like the tobacco companies did.
And the small retailers? They'll just be collateral damage because they will be bankrupted and have to close their doors.
I am familiar with the problem. On the main road right outside the reservation there are shops selling beer.
People drive there, fill up the car, and drive home often intoxicated. There are accidents on the road, and often in the winter they freeze to death walking home from the party near their house (it gets 30 below there).
The idea is if they had to drive to the city to buy beer, there’d be fewer deaths. I’m not sure if that’s true, but there is a place in hell for people who make lots of money selling beer to alcoholics.
In any case, I did not say caffeine was prohibited. I said Mormons are "not supposed" to drink caffeine. In the English language most people recognize that there is a difference between the words "should" and "must".
As it is laid out in the handbook on their website:
"Members should not use any substance that contains illegal drugs. Nor should members use harmful or habit-forming substances except under the care of a competent physician."
Source: http://www.lds.org/handbook/handbook-2-administering-the-church/selected-church-policies?lang=eng#21.3
Caffeine, though not addictive, is habit-forming.
It is certainly true that a.) Native Americans have a much higher rate of alcoholism than other U.S. populations; and b.) Native Americans metabolize alcohol differently due to genetics. But, suprisingly b does not account for a, at least in the writing I've seen on the subject.
From: http://alcohol.addictionblog.org/is-native-american-alcoholism-genetic/ - this is just a blog, but I have seen similar findings discussed in multiple sources.
"The main current theories for alcoholism among American Indians focus on alcohol metabolism to try to explain why alcohol dependence rates are so high among the population. Some researchers have thought that Native Americans are predisposed to alcoholism because of differences in the way they metabolize alcohol. More specifically, researchers think that alcohol metabolism may affect the regulation of alcohol intake, because interference with production or elimination of the alcohol metabolite acetaldehyde has behavioral effects. And while studies of families, twins, and adoptees support a genetic predisposition to alcoholism may confirm this, the exact genetic code has yet to be cracked.
What researchers have found is that alcohol is broken down and eliminated differently in Native Americans than in other populations. So far, studies have found a variant of the ALDH1 enzyme that is encoded by the ALDH1A1*2 allele and a variant of the ADH1B enzyme that is encoded by the ADH1B*3 allele. However, the genes that have been identified in Native Americans are associated with a protective effect and do not explain the high rates of alcoholism in the tribes investigated.
It is a puzzlement :-)
In any case, for the beer suit the bottom line remains the same - adults, of whatever predisposition, need to take responsibility for their own behavior. I am an alcoholic, but I took responsibility for myself and stopped drinking in 2007, and haven't had a drink since. (And there are people with far longer abstinences.) If I start to drink again, it's nobody's fault but my own. If Native Americans drink, it's their responsibility.
One important difference is that the tobacco companies were purposely deceitful about the effects of tobacco. There was a substantial body of evidence that they engaged in a conspiracy to keep the public from learning the truth.
The case of alcohol is totally different, AFAIK. Brewers have not been shown to cover up the harmful effects of overindulgence. And there have been a number of studies to show, for most people, alcohol consumed in moderate quantities can have a beneficial effect.
But, in any case, given the vast literature on the pre-disposition of Native Americans to alcoholism I think it can be argued that there is a "willing assumption of risk" by a tribe member consuming alcohol in the first place. I would think the same thing for anybody who started smoking in the last 20 years or so.
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