Meth takes a toll on Indian reservations

Last year, Fyten’s reservation recruited Jay Barton to help. Barton, an Oklahoma police officer who also works for the National American Indian Housing Council, is travelling around the country teaching Native Indian housing officials what the drug does and how to spot it.

Statistics on Indian meth use are scarce, but an administration survey found in 2004 that almost 2 percent of the American Indian population was using meth. Robert McSwain, deputy director of the Indian Health Service, told a congressional panel earlier this month that the rate of Indians using meth appears to have increased dramatically in the past five years.

This poses a major problem for states and Indian reservations, Barton said, as some states have passed laws that essentially punish property owners for meth contamination. Some landlords—including Indian housing authorities—have been forced to pay for cleanup of meth labs, which can cost thousands of dollars.

Because it is often up to the reservations to pick up the work and also the tab, and because most of these reservations have dramatic housing shortages, Barton said there is a critical need for education about meth. Indian housing has been a problem for decades. According to a 2003 survey, an estimated 200,000 housing units are needed immediately in Indian country and approximately 90,000 Indian families are homeless or ‘‘under-housed’’.

Ron Peltier, director of the Turtle Mountain Housing Authority in North Dakota, said he hopes Barton will be able to help his reservation. ‘‘We have a lot of workers who are unaware of how meth labs look,’’ Peltier said. “When we go there, we don’t know what to look for.’’

The meth problem in Indian country has shown few signs of slowing, however. At the congressional hearing earlier this year, McSwain said the situation could be described in a single word: ‘‘crisis’’.

–MARY CLARE JALONICK