Pubdate: Sun, 27 Jul 2014
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2014 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Troy A. Eid
Page: 1D

INDIAN YOUTH HURT BY COLORADO'S MARIJUANA EXPERIMENT

Our youth are abusing marijuana as never before. The stuff they're
smoking and eating comes to our kids still in its packaging from Denver."

I'm on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, a seven-hour
drive from Denver. The attorney general for the Oglala Sioux Tribe,
Tate (pronounced "Taah'tay") Means-daughter of the late American
Indian Movement activist Russell Means-is describing how Colorado's
experiment in marijuana legalization threatens law and order on one of
the country's poorest Indian reservations.

Means, a 30ish Stanford University graduate, already confronts some of
the toughest crime challenges anywhere. The reported sexual assault
rate at Pine Ridge is 10 times the national average. But the new spike
in marijuana abuse still comes as a shock. Means and her colleagues -
we're joined by three tribal court judges-marvel at how Colorado
voters thought they could keep our state's marijuana legalization
experiment to ourselves.

I've heard this before from many other Native nations throughout the
West. As chairman of a presidential commission that recommends public
safety improvements on the 567 federally recognized Native nations
across the United States, my status as a Colorado citizen is often
what sparks the most interest. The Dakotas, New Mexico, Arizona-seems
like wherever I travel- Native people ask me to talk about
"diversion," the leakage of Colorado's state-legalized cannabis
products on their teenagers and, yes, children.

Colorado-driven marijuana diversion to other states seems to be
everywhere these days. Over lunch recently in Cheyenne, Wyoming's
governor, Matt Mead, wonders what Colorado is going to do about
marijuana coming into his state's public secondary schools. It isn't
whether diversion is happening, he says: Colorado's state-sanctioned
packaging of marijuana candy and other edibles speaks for itself.

The increasingly urgent question now is whether Coloradans intend to
take any responsibility for this tragic state of affairs and, if so,
how.

Passage of Amendment 66 legalized marijuana in Colorado but, as we all
know, left intact federal criminal laws criminalizing the possession,
distribution and cultivation of cannibis. Voters in Washington state
approved a similar initiative there, which also took effect this year.

The promoters of both measures vowed that marijuana wouldn't be
diverted to places where it's still illegal. Places like Pine Ridge,
or the Yakima Nation in central Washington state. The Washington
marijuana initiative, incidentally, exempted Yakima and other tribes
from state marijuana legalization because Indian nations are
sovereign-governments entitled to make and enforce their own laws
that meet the needs of their citizens. Still, Washington-labeled
marijuana is reportedly showing up at Yakima, too. Tribal leaders are
so outraged they want to extend their marijuana ban to all areas of
Washington state covered by the Yakima Nation's original treaty with
the United States.

In both Native nations and many others, tribal leaders are fighting a
heroic but losing stand as state-legalized marijuana, cannibis-infused
food, liquids, e-cigarette cartridges and other products make their
way to young people from Colorado and Washington state-licensed
dispensaries.

This isn't just a problem on Indian reservations, of course. But
Native American youth are especially hard-hit. In its 2013 report to
Congress and President Obama, the National Indian Law and Order
Commission found that 25 percent of all American Indian young people
suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder because they're so often
exposed to violent crime. That's the same PTSD rate as returning
combat veterans from Afghanistan.

Coloradans need to sober up to what we're doing to people in other
places who never bought into our state's self-centered marijuana
experiment. Regardless whether you voted for or against Amendment 66,
it's time to demand action from the president and Congress to reform
our federal marijuana laws and strengthen their enforcement.

Revising the U.S. Criminal Code to enable all states and Indian tribes
to opt out of federal marijuana laws-essentially how alcohol
prohibition ended during the New Deal in the 1930s-offers state and
tribal voters a meaningful choice instead of the chaos that often
reigns today. Only federally authorized decriminalization of marijuana
that respects the prerogatives of states and tribes can ensure a
concerted national enforcement strategy against marijuana diversion.

That same national approach, backed by strong federal enforcement in
partnership with state, local and tribal law enforcement and
prosecution, has largely eliminated alcohol bootlegging and the gangs
that profited by it. Rigorous federal requirements for the testing,
regulating, marketing and advertising of alcohol, with local licensing
for sale and distribution, likewise provides vital safeguards against
use and abuse by young people.

There is a right way and a wrong way to do things. Colorado's
marijuana experiment is many things - a protest against Washington,
D.C., a bow to Colorado's tradition of political independence-but
it's also just plain self-centered. We all know it. The people in
places like the Pine Ridge Reservation - experts in hearing broken
promises from their neighbors - know it, too.

We're not fooling anyone. It's time for Congress to act.

Troy A. Eid, a former U.S. attorney for Colorado, chairs the National
Indian Law and Order Commission.
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MAP posted-by: Matt