I guess stealing the buffalo and the land wasn't enough

[DKSuddeth]

Now they want to cut in to yet another profitable venue that the native americans dominate in.

http://www.modbee.com/local/story/8024495p-8887980c.html

PALM SPRINGS -- Confronted with a proposed initiative to end their voter-approved monopoly on slot machines, California Indian casino tribes have begun assembling an arsenal that includes legal challenges, lots of money -- and possibly an initiative of their own.
"This is clearly the first step toward a massive expansion of non-Indian gaming in the state," California Nations Indian Gaming Association Chairman Anthony Miranda told attendees last week at the ninth annual Western Indian Gaming Conference.

"It goes without saying that this initiative must be resisted."

The proposed measure, drafted and bankrolled by the state's horse racing and card room industries, would require California tribes with casinos to contribute 25 percent of their revenues to the state and meet other requirements.

If any one tribe failed to do so, or if the proposed initiative were thwarted by the governor, Legislature, federal government or courts, five racetracks and 11 card rooms would be allowed to have a total of as many as 30,000 slot machines.

Once the measure is certified by the state attorney general, which should occur next week, proponents must gather about 665,000 valid signatures of registered voters to put the plan on the November ballot.

Racetracks and card rooms long have complained that they are handicapped in selling their gambling products because only Indian tribes can operate slot machines, and only on federally recognized tribal lands. Slots are the single most lucrative gambling device in the country.

But the tribes, most of them in rural areas, fear slots at tracks and card rooms in urban areas would cut deeply into their business.

Tuolumne County is home to two Indian casinos: Black Oak Casino in Tuolumne City and Chicken Ranch Bingo & Casino in Jamestown.

"This is self-preservation for the tribes, and they are going to take this as seriously as they need to," said Howard Dickstein, a Sacramento attorney who represents five casino tribes, including some in Placer, Yolo and Amador counties.

Tribal officials and their attorneys are working on a strategy to defeat the proposed initiative. Part of that, sources said, could be for the tribes to sponsor their own initiative that would let voters decide some details of compacts between the tribes and the state, including extending the length of the current compacts, which expire in 2020.

 

[nbdysfu]

I have no sympathy for either gambling establishment on either side of the argument. They're as good as drug dealers.

 

[DKSuddeth]

Originally posted by nbdysfu
I have no sympathy for either gambling establishment on either side of the argument. They're as good as drug dealers.

not discounting your opinion on that, but can you explain why you feel that way?

 

[Moi]

Originally posted by nbdysfu
I have no sympathy for either gambling establishment on either side of the argument. They're as good as drug dealers.

I don't drink or smoke nor have I ever taken drugs. But once a year I go to Vegas for a bit of fun. How in the world does that compare with drug dealers?

 

[jon_forward]

last I knew gambling was STILL legal in Nevada...plus numerous other states...if you choose not to gamble fine...but dont condemn those of us that do from time to time...comparing gambling to drug-dealers is saying that all gamblers are drug-addicts...

 

[SinisterMotives]

Originally posted by Moi
I don't drink or smoke nor have I ever taken drugs. But once a year I go to Vegas for a bit of fun. How in the world does that compare with drug dealers?

Going to Vegas requires saving up money and making a special trip, like any other vacation. When it's just around the corner from your house, it's easy to make more frequent trips and to blow all of your available funds - the same as if you have a drug problem and there's a drug dealer nearby.

 

[nbdysfu]

Gambling is a vice. It's only method of profit is to find the most high probability chance for patrons to lose money and for the casino to make money. Especially with the old and the desparate, it is a vehicle to connive people into believing they might actually benefit from putting coin in a slot. That's why Las Vegas makes money rather than loses it. I personally think every river boat casino should be sent up river.

In response to the thing about taxes:

I think the reserves should have equal tax limitations as non-reserve gambling establishments BUT with two exceptions:

1. depending on the percentage difference in what kind of social programs reserves receive (are there none?)

2. natives of the reserve should not be taxed for gambling at reserve casinos. that money stays in the tribe.

 

[Moi]

Originally posted by SinisterMotives
Going to Vegas requires saving up money and making a special trip, like any other vacation. When it's just around the corner from your house, it's easy to make more frequent trips and to blow all of your available funds - the same as if you have a drug problem and there's a drug dealer nearby.

So because some people are weak willed, that makes a legal occupation the same as an illegal one? You are not only reaching, it's laugable.

 

[Moi]

Originally posted by nbdysfu
Gambling is a vice. It's only method of profit is to find the most high probability chance for patrons to lose money and for the casino to make money. Especially with the old and the desparate, it is a vehicle to connive people into believing they might actually benefit from putting coin in a slot. That's why Las Vegas makes money rather than loses it. I personally think every river boat casino should be sent up river.

Gambling casinos are entertainment. Movie theatres make money- are they drug dealers in disguise too? Restaurants make money- are they? Just because my form of entertainment involves games where there's actually a chance of winning back the cost of playing, no matter how slim, doesn't make those offering them drug dealers.

 

[SinisterMotives]

Originally posted by Moi
So because some people are weak willed, that makes a legal occupation the same as an illegal one? You are not only reaching, it's laugable.

No, it doesn't make them equivalent. And I was just playing the devil's advocate and supplying the link you asked for. :

 

[DKSuddeth]

I agree Moi, Living in New Mexico for a few years around several reservation casinos I saw no problem with going there with 20 bucks and either leaving when its gone or staying and winning a while. Those that find themselves in over their heads, well hey, sorry about that but it was a choice you made.

 

[Moi]

Originally posted by SinisterMotives
No, it doesn't make them equivalent. And I was just playing the devil's advocate and supplying the link you asked for. :

Well, in all honesty I still see no link. One's legal activity, the other not. One causes death as a worst case scenario, the other doesn't.

 

[nbdysfu]

Originally posted by SinisterMotives
Going to Vegas requires saving up money and making a special trip, like any other vacation. When it's just around the corner from your house, it's easy to make more frequent trips and to blow all of your available funds - the same as if you have a drug problem and there's a drug dealer nearby.
_______________ __________________

Vegas is like a lesser evil, as long as you ignore the ecological aspects and the growing population.

A reservation casino is bad for the natives if it is aimed at them. They recently made a remote betting parlor for the local horsetrack because they saw an untapped market in my locale's inner city.

 

[SinisterMotives]

Originally posted by Moi
Well, in all honesty I still see no link. One's legal activity, the other not. One causes death as a worst case scenario, the other doesn't.

If it's the "legal vs. illegal" angle that has you stumped, let's try another analogy. This is strictly tongue-in-cheek, mind you.

Legitimate pharmaceutical firms have, in the past few years, begun running TV ads depiciting people who feel so good after taking their products that they're practically wetting their pants with joy. And yet some of the commercials don't tell you what disease or symptoms the drug was designed to treat, only that it makes you feel good. Other than being legal, how do these commercials differ from the come-ons of a pusher of illegal drugs?

 

[jon_forward]

if its such a bad place why is it growing by leaps and bounds? no state tax on income, no snow...no bitting bugs...great schools...fantastic parks....low crime rate....

 

[MtnBiker]

Originally posted by DKSuddeth
Those that find themselves in over their heads, well hey, sorry about that but it was a choice you made.

Sad but true, sometimes people make poor choices.

 

[Moi]

Originally posted by SinisterMotives
If it's the "legal vs. illegal" angle that has you stumped, let's try another analogy. This is strictly tongue-in-cheek, mind you.

Legitimate pharmaceutical firms have, in the past few years, begun running TV ads depiciting people who feel so good after taking their products that they're practically wetting their pants with joy. And yet some of the commercials don't tell you what disease or symptoms the drug was designed to treat, only that it makes you feel good. Other than being legal, how do these commercials differ from the come-ons of a pusher of illegal drugs?

I have never seen a commercial that did not include a disclaimer that medical supervision is required. Nor, to my knowledge, is it legal to take a medication without a medical doctor first prescribing it. Now, if a medical doctor prescribes a medication without the recognized symptoms for which it is administered being verified, than that doctor has commited malpractice. Or, if a person takes a drug without a prescription it's a clear case of stupidity.

Again, malpractice and stupidity versus a voluntary entertainment action. An argument of apples versus oranges.

 

[nbdysfu]

Plagued by Drugs, Tribes Revive Ancient Penalty
By SARAH KERSHAW and MONICA DAVEY

Published: January 18, 2004


ELLINGHAM, Wash. — For generations the Noland family has led a troubled life on the Lummi Indian reservation here. The Nolands have struggled with alcohol, painkillers and, more recently, crack. Seven family members are now jailed, several for dealing drugs, on and off tribal land.

Their experience has been repeated hundreds of times on this sprawling, desperately poor reservation of 2,000 Lummi, where addiction and crime have become pervasive. It is the reason that the Lummi tribe has turned as a last resort to a severe and bygone punishment, seeking to banish five of the young men in jail and another recently released. It is also the reason for evicting Yevonne Noland, 48, the matriarch of the Noland clan, from her modest blue house on the reservation, because her son, a convicted drug dealer, was listed on the lease.

Banishment once turned unwanted members of a tribe into a caste of the "walking dead," and some people criticize it as excessive and inhumane, more extreme than the punishments meted out by the world outside and a betrayal of an already fragile culture.

But a growing number of tribes across the country, grappling with a rise in drug and alcohol abuse, gambling, poverty and violence, have used banishment in varying forms in the last decade. Tribal leaders see this ancient response, which reflects Indian respect for community, as a painful but necessary deterrent.

"We need to go back to our old ways," said Darrell Hillaire, chairman of the Lummi Tribal Council, shortly before an early morning meeting on the reservation recently about the tribe's new campaign against drugs. "We had to say enough is enough."

While the Lummi use banishment to root out drug dealers, other tribes, like the Chippewa of Grand Portage, Minn., are using it to rid the reservation of the worst troublemakers and to preserve what they say is a shared set of core values.

Being banished can mean losing health, housing and education benefits, tribal rights to fishing and hunting, burial rights, even the cash payments made to members of tribes earning hefty casino profits.

Recently, the Lummi have begun evicting the residents of households in which someone is charged with any drug-related crime. That is what happened to Ms. Noland, who said she had never been arrested yet was evicted from her home on the reservation because of her son's conviction for selling painkillers outside the reservation. She is now awaiting a ruling from the tribal court on her appeal of that decision.

Although banishment was not being used when Ms. Noland's nephews and her son Robert Zamora committed their crimes, she acknowledged that the threat might have deterred them. Still, she said, the punishment is too brutal. "Spiritually, it's going to take your insides and turn them inside out."

She worries for her nephews and son. "They don't have an education," she said. "What are they going to do when they get out there? And what is the white man going to do, with the tribe kicking us all off our own reservation? Can't they see this is a catastrophe in waiting?"

Even within the Lummi Tribal Council, there is debate about how far the nation should go in its war on drugs, particularly around the eviction policy.

"Would we propose taking someone's food or water?" said Perry Adams, vice chairman of the council. "It is a human right, and for us to turn housing into a form of policing, I think we've gone too far. I think we had good intentions, but does the tribe really have the right to take away membership in the nation?"

Tribal leaders estimate that at least 500 Indians on the reservation are addicted to painkillers or heroin and scores of others to alcohol. Guns and violence plague some neighborhoods. Babies are born addicted to drugs. Ms. Noland's 15-month-old grand-niece died two years ago of an overdose after eating an OxyContin pill that was dropped on the ground.

The loss of that baby was the turning point — when the tribe hit rock-bottom, leaders said. It came as an exploding number of drug- and alcohol-related deaths were filling the Lummi cemetery, along a winding road that hugs Bellingham Bay and is lined with fliers and flowers marking the spots where drunken drivers crashed and died.

There had long been a severe alcohol problem on the reservation, a scourge throughout Indian country. But things took a terrible turn in the late 1990's, when OxyContin made its way to the reservation at a time when the tribe's long history of living well off the land and water had virtually come to an end.

Bellingham Bay and the surrounding waters once brimmed with salmon, holding the riches that made the Lummi, known as People of the Sea, one of the most successful fishing tribes. Many of those fishermen, with the salmon population shrinking and the unemployment rate on the reservation skyrocketing, have turned to dealing drugs.

Tribal leaders estimate the value of the annual drug trade on the reservation is now $2 million, easily surpassing fishing industry profits

complete article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/18/national/18BANI.html?pagewanted=2

 

[SinisterMotives]

Originally posted by Moi
I have never seen a commercial that did not include a disclaimer that medical supervision is required. Nor, to my knowledge, is it legal to take a medication without a medical doctor first prescribing it. Now, if a medical doctor prescribes a medication without the recognized symptoms for which it is administered being verified, than that doctor has commited malpractice. Or, if a person takes a drug without a prescription it's a clear case of stupidity.

Again, malpractice and stupidity versus a voluntary entertainment action. An argument of apples versus oranges.

Sure, the commercials all say "Ask your doctor if Brand X is right for you." But how would you know to ask your doctor that if you don't know whether you have the symptoms Brand X is supposed to alleviate? And keep in mind that abusing legitimately prescribed drugs is just as popular as abusing illicit drugs and herbs nowadays. In fact, I get 10 spam e-mails a day telling me how easily I can get prescription pain relievers over the Internet, and I don't have a legitimate need for them.

 

[DKSuddeth]

Plagued by Drugs, Tribes Revive Ancient Penalty

I, for one, think its wonderful that the tribes are going back to some old ways that worked before. It should help immensely for their future.