LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — An American Indian tribe sued some
of the world’s largest beer makers Thursday, claiming they knowingly
contributed to devastating alcohol-related problems on South Dakota’s
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe of South
Dakota said it is demanding $500 million in damages for the cost of
health care, social services and child rehabilitation caused by chronic
alcoholism on the reservation.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District
Court of Nebraska also targets four off-site beer stores in Whiteclay, a
Nebraska Panhandle town that, despite having only about a dozen
residents, sold nearly 5 million cans of beer in 2010. Most of its
customers come from the Pine Ridge reservation on the town’s border.
Leaders
of the tribe blame the Whiteclay businesses for chronic alcohol abuse
and bootlegging on the reservation, where all alcohol is banned.
The
lawsuit alleges that the beer makers and stores sold to Pine Ridge’s
Indian population, knowing they would smuggle the alcohol into the
reservation to drink or resell. The beer makers supplied the stores with
"volumes of beer far in excess of an amount that could be sold in
compliance with the laws of the state of Nebraska" and the tribe, tribal
officials allege in the lawsuit.
The Connecticut-sized
reservation has struggled with alcoholism and poverty for generations,
despite an alcohol ban in place since 1832. Pine Ridge legalized alcohol
in 1970 but restored the ban two months later, and an attempt to allow
it in 2004 died after a public outcry.
The lawsuit says one in
four children born on the reservation suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome
or fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. The average life expectancy is
estimated between 45 and 52 years, the shortest in North America except
for Haiti, according to the lawsuit. The average American life
expectancy is 77.5 years.
"The illegal sale and trade in alcohol
in Whiteclay is open, notorious and well documented by news reports,
legislative hearings, movies, public protests and law enforcement
activities," the lawsuit states. " All of the above have resulted in the
publication of the facts of the illegal trade in alcohol and its
devastating effects on the Lakota people, especially its children, both
born and unborn."
Nebraska lawmakers have struggled for years to
curb the abuse in Whiteclay, and are considering a measure this year
that would allow the state to limit the types of alcohol sold in
troubled areas like it.
The lawsuit names Anheuser-Busch InBev
Worldwide, SAB Miller, Molson Coors Brewing Company, MIllerCoors LLC and
Pabst Brewing Company as defendants.
Pine Ridge encompasses some
of the nation’s poorest counties. U.S. census statistics place Shannon
County, S.D., as the third-poorest, with a median household income of
$27,300 and nearly half of the population meeting federal poverty
standards.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.