Study: 12 Percent of Indian Deaths Due to Alcohol
| More news stories on Indians |
|---|
Mary Clare Jalonick, AP, August 28, 2008
{snip}
[A] report released Thursday by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found 11.7 percent of deaths among American Indians and Alaska Natives between 2001 and 2005 were alcohol-related, compared with 3.3 percent for the U.S. as a whole.
Dwayne Jarman, a CDC epidemiologist who works for the Indian Health Service and is one of the study’s authors, said it is the first national survey that measures American Indian deaths due to alcohol. It should be a “call to action” for federal, state, local and tribal governments, he said.
The researchers obtained their statistics by analyzing death certificates over the four-year period.
The two leading causes of alcohol-related deaths among Indians were traffic accidents and alcoholic liver disease, each of which cause more than a quarter of the 1,514 alcohol-related deaths over the four-year period.
Also listed are homicide (6.6 percent of alcohol-related deaths), suicide (5.2 percent) and injuries in falls (2.2 percent).
{snip}
The study said more than 68 percent of the Indians whose deaths were attributed to alcohol were men, and 66 percent were people younger than 50 years old. Seven percent were less than 20 years old.
The study recommends “culturally appropriate clinical interventions” to reducing excessive drinking and better integration between tribal health care centers and tribal courts, which often deal with alcohol-related crimes.
Donovan Antelope, a spokesman for the Northern Arapaho Tribe, said alcoholism has been a problem for more than a century with many Indian populations.
{snip}
(Posted on August 28, 2008)
Comments
my first job out of college was working at a u.s. gov’t hospital (phoenix indian medical center) i worked in the blood bank within the lab and the g.i. bleeders (due to alcoholism) that came into the e.r. kept us busy. on a side note, my position was contracted and i was eventually replaced by a native american. this particular hospital has a hiring preference, if you happen to be a native american, and it’s legal.
Posted by jp at 7:40 PM on August 28
I have done some research on the ability for mongolids to metabolize ethanol.On the one hand some college websites say their is no genetic difference between white and mongolids.On the other hand you will find that mongolids are deficient in certain metabolic enzymes to metabolize ethanol.
Posted by Tony Soprano. at 7:48 PM on August 28
The laws against selling Indians firewater were based in legitimate concerns, because I know first hand that alcohol affects Indians much worse than anybody else with the possible exception of Japanese who are supposed to be without an important enzyme that plays a role in breaking down alcohol.
Out West, on the reservations, the first week after Indians receive their government checks, it’s really difficult to find any who are sober. And the ones found drunk are bent across fire hydrants, passed out, in yards, the gutter, on top of cars and any other imaginable place that they might have fallen when they drank themselves into unconsciousness. And when they wake up they try it again until their money is all gone.
Liberals will say it’s because the white man took their land and treated them badly, but anybody who really knows them is aware that they do it because they like it. It’s as simple as that.
Posted by ice at 9:23 PM on August 28
I do medical transcription for a living for a company whose two major hospital accounts are in the greater L.A. area.
I don’t know about how many of the alcohol-related deaths are for Native Americans, but I sure type up a lot of reports for Hispanics (mostly males) who are well on the way to drinking themselves to death (with expensive taxpayer-paid medical interventions along the way) by their mid-30s.
Occasionlly I type up a report for one of these bozos who is in his mid-20s or so.
Although there are fewer Hispanic females who do this (compared to the males), nevertheless every once in a while I see a report for one.
Posted by at 10:31 PM on August 28
well, okay, sounds like a personal choice to me. I would be really careful about innuendoes about them being of a weaker constitution than the rest of us. seems like all non-whites are very thin-skinned now-a-days.
Posted by at 10:35 PM on August 28
Why is this just now being published? I thought it was common knoweledge, but apparently only in the Western United States. We had this information years ago.
Posted by at 11:42 PM on August 28
I’m no liberal, but I can imagine that Native Americans would fill up their time with drinking when they didn’t fit into what we’ve made of this USofA. I am one who would say, “Shouldn’t they be able to manage by now?” But now that I’ve experienced more of life, I can have another perspective. People are more prone to their personal vices when they feel alone, hopeless, and to be an outcast.
I learned more of Native Americans and their alcoholism after learning of Ira Hayes, one of the flagraisers at Iwo Jima, of whom a song and movie are dedicated.
Posted by at 1:28 AM on August 29
I thought the sale of ‘firewater’ to indians in USA was banned at least a hundred years ago because the evil effects as described above soon became apparant. In Australia, it is still against the law to sell/give alcohol to aborigines to the extent that white tourists have their vehicles searched before proceeding into tribal areas. The japanese simply drink until they pass out and wake up without a hang-over. I don’t think there are any japanese alcoholics, recovering or otherwise. There must be other ethnic groups who have a tolerance or adverse reaction to alcohol. Elephants have been observed to become ‘drunk’ after gorging on over-ripe bananas and display all the signs of horrendous hang-overs but it would be a very brave man indeed who decided to carry out in-depth intimate research to verify this. I confess I have never witnessed any elephant throwing up in a gutter. The answer to ‘where does a drunken elephant sleep?’ is.. anywhere it wants.
Posted by yorkshireman at 5:45 AM on August 29
“On the other hand you will find that mongolids are deficient in certain metabolic enzymes to metabolize ethanol.” Tony Soprano
Your right Tony. For centuries it’s been known that Indians get drunk on liquor quicker than whites. I think most Native Americans accept this. They should act responsibility with alcohol. Alcohol, diabetes and government handouts, not whites, are the real annihilators of Native Americans.
Posted by Sardonicus at 8:22 AM on August 29
“Alcohol, diabetes and government handouts, not whites, are the real annihilators of Native Americans.”
How the hell are handouts, giving someone free money or benefits, probably both, how is that ‘annihilating’ them or ‘oppressing’ them? It oppresses me, the taxpayer. And the scapegoat. I enjoy reading your posts Sardonicus, but on this one point you seem to be on the same page as the enemy - oppressors.
Posted by Dr. Smith at 10:57 AM on August 29
I think the worst alcohol sufferers are probably American Indians and Australian Aboriginees. Caucasians have been exposed to alcohol for the last 6000 years, while Amerinds only for several hundred years, and Aboriginees for less than 200. One must wonder whether there was a similar “weeding-out” process among our own distant ancestors when they first began drinking alcohol. Europeans also certainly would have had a greater incentive to produce alcoholic drinks like cider or beer; these store better than the apples and grain from which they are made (the same way cheese stores better than milk), thus allowing an autumn food surplus to be conserved to provide extra calories for winter.
The inefficient metabolic enzyme found in northeast Asians - like Japanese - makes them feel the effects of drink quickly and severely, but they also feel flushed and uncomfortable, so they very rarely become alcoholics; most of them stop drinking at this point, just because they don’t feel well.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 2:35 PM on August 29
A contributor suggested that few if any Japanese are alcoholics. Unhappily this not quite true; the down-at-heel Airin [or Kamagasaki] area of Osaka is the zone of day-laborers and construction workers, many of whom have a serious problem with alcohol. Every tenth shop in Airin sells sake, beer and cheap vodka and shochu [a white distillate made from rice and/or potatoes.] I don’t know the exact physiological details - the absence of 1 or more metabolic enzymes in the gut, I think - but a Japanese will get squiffy far faster than a Caucasian of similar body mass [I can vouch for this personally]. Drunkenness, except on festive occasions, is frowned on - although the creative dipsomaniac is a familiar figure in Japanese culture.
The Ainu, the original inhabitants of Hokkaido and northern Honshu, are said to have had a suicidal prediliction for alcohol and, as with Native Americans and Australians, it was at one time a criminal office to supply them with the demon drink.
Posted by Bill Corr at 5:09 PM on August 29
American Indians comprised one of the few racial groups who never discovered how to make alcohol. Whether their problems with it stem from the possibility that other races long ago purged, through simple attrition, those among them with a predisposition for alcoholism or whether they’re genetically disposed to it at a much higher frequency level may never be known.
But there’s no question that alcohol abuse by Indians is probably the biggest single factor in their seeming inability to adapt to modern society.
Their situation is an ongoing tragedy for this country that doesn’t seem to get much attention, perhaps because unlike some other minorities they really don’t cause a lot of disruption or display widespread criminal behavior.
I wish I knew the answer.
Posted by john at 5:29 PM on August 29
If shochu is the same as soju, it is a drink of Korean origin, also distilled in China. Cheap gin seemed to be a favorite of the hardcore drinkers there. On the other hand, where I was - Sakado-shi (in Saitama Prefecture) vending machines that sold beer were everywhere (though they turned themselves off at 11:00 PM). I fell in love with the place right away, of course.
Public inebriation didn’t seem to carry much of a social stigma when I was in Japan, unless it involved obnoxious behavior or vomiting.
Government handouts may well be harming Amerinds. Take away someone’s need to be responsible, and they stop being responsible. Subsidies generally produce more of whatever they are subsidizing. We have seen this with black families; once the need for black women to find mates who will support children was eliminated by welfare, the illigetimacy rate skyrocketed.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 1:34 PM on August 30
Mongols also have a problem with alcohol. Look up stories of the drunks that Western tourists in Tuva (Russian Mongolia) have to put up with. (I’ve heard that some of the Westerners who visit Tuva to study throat-singing have been attempting to raise funds to aid Tuvan anti-alcoholism efforts.)
Japanese typically get red in the face upon consuming even a small amount of alcohol.
Posted by convairXF92 at 3:41 PM on August 30
“How the hell are handouts, giving someone free money or benefits, probably both, how is that ‘annihilating’ them or ‘oppressing’ them? It oppresses me, the taxpayer.” Dr. Smith
I’m convinced dependency on government handouts always does more harm than good. I think Michael Scott has it right when he said “Take away someone’s need to be responsible, and they stop being responsible.”
Posted by Sardonicus at 7:47 AM on September 2