Central Washington contains the reservation of the Yakima Indian Tribe. Tribes have historically had problems with alcohol overuse/abuse and the Yakima Tribe is no different.
One thing that is different is that in the fed’s 1855 Treaty with the tribe, sales of alcohol on the reservation were banned. However, due to the demands of the market, such sales take place at over 40 places of business within the Reservation proper.
Despite the fact that the tribe has their own police force which is responsible for enforcing the laws, tribal activist, Marlene White, blames the fed for not enforcing the treaty’s alcohol ban. In fact, she is going to court over it.
“There has been no enforcement,” White says. “When we first started the alcohol ban in reference to our treaty, we were successful in getting rid of the state liquor stores, but since then nothing has been done.”
Earlier this month, she filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Yakima seeking a court order after witnessing alcohol sales at Harold’s General Merchandise and the Spur Tavern, both situated deep within the reservation boundaries in Harrah.
Tribal attorney Jack Fiander considers it a straightforward case and expects a decision in about six months.
In fighting such cases, many tribes have been successful in regulating and taxing alcohol on their reservations.
But in banning alcohol, most of those tribes have lacked the legal power the Yakamas have in their treaty, Fiander said.
(snip)
Toppenish City Councilwoman Elaine Willman — also director of a local group formed to combat the alcohol ban — said the tribe will have a fight on its hands if it attempts to enforce the ban on non-Indians.
She contends that non-
Indians on nontribal land within the reservation are under state, not tribal, jurisdiction.
“If it is to extend tribal jurisdiction over non-Indians on this checkerboard (of land ownership) reservation, then they’re barking up the wrong tree again,” she said. “They know they’re going to get a fight because they know they are exceeding their authority, treaty or not.”
But White says alcohol has caused only harm to tribal members since being brought here more than 150 years ago.
“We don’t want to infringe on anyone’s rights,” she said. “It has infringed on our rights.”
Frankly, I do not see how an inanimate fluid can infringe on anyone’s rights. But then again, I do not depend on the fed to do something that I am able to control; my consumption of alcohol.
Go ahead, call alcoholism a “disease” instead of what it really is. Call it a “mental disease” if you want to, but you’ll still be fooling yourself.
Alcohol dependancy is a learned behavior. Any other title you may believe it to be is just psychobabble thought up to take the blame off of where it rests, on the drinker, to make them “feeeel” less shitty about what they’ve done to themselves and the people around them. No one makes the drinker buy it and no one is pouring the shit down down their throats.
And it is precisely psychobabble such as this that helps perpetuate alcohol dependancy.
Alcohol is not “habit forming”. People are habit forming. Alcohol is poison and the body rejects it as such. That funny sensation called “A Buzz” is you brain slowly being killed.
Marlene White has figured out that her tribal police have no responsibility to follow or enforce the laws, so now she is going after The Great White Father to come bring his blue-shirted paleface men to town and stop people from hurting themselves, when she would be better off reminding the tribal leaders that their job is to lead.
And it all goes to show that once someone is allowed to rely on government, they will rarely, if ever, break that addicition on their own. Whether it is free food, free housing, free transportation or free medical care. It is just as harmful as heroin, except that the only person who pays for it monetarily is the productive citizen via their taxes.
And just to add on to that point; it is perpetuated by the liberal, who faults the US Government for not protecting the “Native Americans” from the ravages of alcohol just as they believe that the federal government has an obligation to give people free stuff.
