An Epidemic of Gas Sniffing Decimates Arctic Indian Tribe

The New York Times ^ | March 4, 2001 | By MARY ROGAN Photographs by ARLENE GOTTFRIED

[willyone]

The Toulene it is mixed with is the same as glue. There are no old glue sniffers.

[headsonpikes]

"Socialism at work."

The entire Canadian experience with aboriginals is a cautionary tale for those who believe that the government helping folks out is a 'good thing'.

The 'benefits' of paternalism are mostly genocidal in appearance; one has to wonder what the real goal of social welfare programs is.

I think I know. ;*(

[Senator Pardek]

Another favorite of some (few, but a "habit" anyway) Native Americans is to puncture a Lysol can, pour it into an empty milk container, and dilute it with water - instant moonshine.

Very sad.

[willyone]

Brain damaged beyond repair? Lets run them for congres. They will be perfect. Isn't McCain from Arizona where the Navajo are? Explains alot.

[Centurion2000]

The children, residents of the village of Sheshatshiu, where 1,200 of the 2,000 members of Labrador's Innu Nation live, are addicted to sniffing gasoline

Darwin Award to an entire village ... criminy these people are stupid.

[snowtigger]

Iworked in western Alaska villages. The suicide rate there is 9 times the national average.

just apersonal observation; It seems to me that what they are missing is a sense of hope. For aman to make a living, he must leave the village. For most, this means fighting forest fires or construction, both seasonal. They return to the villages and try to improve their lot. They can only look forward to more of the same as there are no jobs locally. They get depressed, so they drink to feel better, which ultimately leads leads to deeper depression, which leads to more drinking until, finally they take the ultimate escape, suicide.

The native corporations offer no help. While their people live in squalor, an elitist few rake in salaries off 40,000 to 200,000 dollars per year.

A young man in one village told me this story. He and a friend walked to an old gold mine 15 miles from the village. They spent a day panning gold and made a couple hundred dollars each. There is a limited amount of water available, so this will never be a major mining operation, but a few men could make a living there and go home at night. The mine sits on corporation land. They tried to get the corp to lease them the land. The people whom they talked to told them the CORP does not do that. They MIGHT open the mine at some future date and offer them jobs, but until then they were to stay away from the mine. That was 1994. It is still idle today. The men still have to leave to find jobs. No hope.

[bandlength]

"They can only look forward to more of the same as there are no jobs locally..." "For aman to make a living, he must leave the village state."

Sounds like upstate NY!

[Jorge]

When we were teenagers a lot of us were huffing stuff like nail polish remover and Carbona Spot remover.

I didn't huff that much, but we used to go to the woods when we were smoking pot to laugh at the huffers. They used to act really bizarre when they were high. We thought it was funny.

Until one of them died.
They said he got so messed up he was actually drinking the stuff.(Carbona)

When the people he was riding around with realized he was dying they just dumped him out of the car into the Mall parking lot across the street from my house.
He was found dead there the next day.

I remember going to his viewing and noticing that you could still see the ring from the bag around his mouth even through all the make-up.
His name was Jeff Rhodes and he was 14 years old.

Needless to say, a lot of people in our area stopped huffing after that.

[Paulus Invictus]

Sniffing gasoline is absolutely deadly. The many toxic solvents involved, like benzine, will kill anyone if sniffed regularly. Even the gas companies recognize this and you now see warnings about inadvertent sniffing at most gas pumps. We saw some kids in Hawaii that were addicted to gas sniffing and we were told they all had severely damaged brains with no hope of recovery.

[Old Professer]

"All we can do is put them out when they set themselves on fire,"

I know I am going to get beat-up for saying this, but that's the funniest sentence I've read in days.

[Elsie]

The officers also said that sniffing gas is not illegal in Davis Inlet, so they are not allowed to take the bags away from the children.

---

Just WHO is the ADULT here!!!???

Just slap the crap out of them, take their bag, take their arm, take them BACK to their parents, and slap the crap out of THEM!

And then, tell them, "If I EVER catch you doing this again........."

[snowtigger]

Don't you long for the days when you could do it this way? It worked!!

[Restorer]

The men still have to leave to find jobs. No hope.

Well, duhh!

If I lived there, I wouldn't have a job either.

Their problem is spiritual, not physical. In a purely material sense, they undoubtedly have much more wealth than they did when they lived nomadically.

[hopespringseternal]

Just WHO is the ADULT here!!!???

Just slap the crap out of them, take their bag, take their arm, take them BACK to their parents, and slap the crap out of THEM!

And then, tell them, "If I EVER catch you doing this again........."

Reminds me of a P.J. O'Rourke story. Some kids at a college newspaper were caught in a conundrum. They had an ad from a racist organization that wanted to buy space and just couldn't decide what to do about it. They didn't want to run a racist ad, but they felt that they had to because of "freedom of speech." His response? "It never occured to them to just throw the piece of trash away."

All those adults standing around, helpless to control pre-adolescents without government intervention. Note to the Innu: You're already dead.

[Restorer]

>>One government official who insisted on anonymity said that the Innu in Davis Inlet also requested a guarantee that if doctors discovered the children had been sexually abused, no charges would be brought against the parents.

Talk about your guilty consciences.

[CougarGA7]

Well if they are having problems with sniffing gas all the time, I would suggest they cut back on the Walrus Burgers.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Exactly. The pathetic calls for a return to their culture indicates they don't have a clue. It is a dead culture as dead as that of Solon's Athens. Can never be regenerated or renewed. It is gone forever.

Of course, this does not make the plight of these people any less heartrending. Only Christ can save them.

[drgnwrks]

Got a Match?

Poof!

Sizzle!

Sizzle

Calling Darwin! Darwin are you there?

[drgnwrks]

I guess that's better than letting them freeze to death.

Could always light a few to keep the rest warm. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

[Zack Nguyen]

I was going to say the same thing, but you said it well.