Out of the mouths of babes

PORTLAND, Ore. – Using babes and studs to sell cigs to the white population
may have lost its cache. But it’s no secret that the corporations are
continuing to plaster rodeos with banners that make tobacco look cool and
sexy. And even though a pack of cigarettes costs $3 to $5 and a can of chew
runs from $2 to $6, American Indians and Alaskan Natives are finding the
money to ante up to Big Tobacco in significant numbers.

“It’s like any addiction,” said Tobacco Prevention Coordinator at the
Native American Rehabilitation Association, Norma Trimble. “When people use
a substance to cope with life, they will go without things they need to get
it. Hence the number of homeless people you see smoking or the number of
women struggling to feed their families using smokeless tobacco.”

That’s why NARA did the “Tobacco … use it in a sacred way” bumper
sticker. The organization wants to educate and prevent tobacco use within
Indian populations. Trimble regularly makes presentations called “Native
American Tobacco 101″ to pockets of urban populations and at NARA’s
outpatient clinic. There she underscores that Indians who used tobacco for
ceremonial purposes “certainly never smoked it every 10 to 15 minutes.”
Trimble continued, “I talk to people about how tobacco is just as sacred as
Mother Earth, and how just as it’s not her fault that her rivers are
polluted, it’s not tobacco’s fault that it’s tainted now with carcinogens
and chemicals.”

Traditionally the word tobacco in various Indian languages actually
referred to mixtures of sweetgrass, sage, red willow bark, and kinnick
kinnick. The Hopi still use a local tobacco in their kiva ceremonies,
although even in the Southwest tribes where rates of smoking are much lower
than those in the rest of the Indian country, cigarettes sometimes replace
herbs or even loose tobacco on many occasions.

A 2004 American Lung Association survey finding shows that the prevalence
of smoking is dramatically higher at 40.8 percent in Indian populations
than in other ethnic groups which range from 23.6 percent with whites, 22.4
percent with blacks, 16.7 percent among Hispanics and 13.3 percent in
Asians and Pacific Islanders. The redeeming caveat, though, is Indians and
Natives are less likely to be heavy smokers with 60.9 percent using less
than 15 cigarettes a day as compared to 43.8 percent in the white
population.

Also prevalence of smoking varies by region. It’s highest in Alaska Natives
at 45.1 percent, with the Northern Plains tribes a close second at 44.2
where rates of heavy smoking are also high. By contrast, the Southwest
tribes, many of whom by virtue of their geographic isolation have retained
considerable cultural integrity, smoke at a rate of 17 percent.

Indeed, instances of tobacco addiction among dislocated urban Indians, many
of whom have marginal ties to their culture, are strikingly pronounced and
run as high as 54 percent in some areas. Toward that end tribal elders
whose health has been ravaged by tobacco speak to young people to try and
discourage them from starting down the dead-end road. While Norma Trimble
isn’t an elder or a former smoker, she is a lung cancer survivor who was
exposed to second-hand smoke throughout much of her life.

“Even now with one lung removed and my job in tobacco prevention and
education, I respect my stepfather too much to ask him to not smoke around
me,” said Trimble. “And when he starts feeling for his pocket, I look for a
lighter for him to let him know it’s OK. It was the same with my oldest
daughter when I was having my surgery. She was still smoking away. I didn’t
say anything to her because Indian people tend to lean toward letting their
adult kids make their own decisions. It’s like any other addiction, people
have to decide on their own if they’re going to quit.”

Trimble’s daughter did ultimately decide to quit, though, and that’s a good
thing with lung cancer and heart disease taking the lives of Indian smokers
in high numbers that range from four to 28 deaths for every 100,000 people.
While the jury is still out on what will ultimately turn these grievous
statistics around, Billings, Mont. at the very least held the first-ever
conference on smokeless chew, the Northern Plains Spit Tobacco Summit, last
fall. And like the program Trimble coordinates, the summit sought to
educate people.

Certainly a key that turned smoking rates in white populations around was
education about the ill health effects of tobacco not to mention that idea
that giving the big corporations hard-earned cash just reinforces a corrupt
class system designed to keep certain groups enmeshed in poverty. That a
similar tactic will work in Indian country is what people like Trimble and
the folks who organized the summit are banking on.