90 1 (B) Administrators of the Women, Infants and 2 Children Program (WIC), operated by the Department 3 of Agriculture; and 4 (C) Personnel of public schools on or near Indian 5 reservations and public schools in Oklahoma, Alaska, 6 and other States with significant numbers of Indian 7 students; 8 (c) The Secretary shall, upon request, provide certifica- 9 tion to any person who completes training under this section, 10 for the purpose of obtaining academic credit or certificationat 11 any post-secondary educational institution. 12 SEC. 5. The Secretary shall, within one year of the date 13of enactment of this Act, conduct a study to determine- 14 (1) the size of the juvenile Indian population in 15 need of residential alcohol and drug abuse treatment; 16 (2) the definition of a "crisis area" in which the 17 need for treatment is critical and immediate; 18 (3) where other programs for emergency and long- 19 term treatment should be located; and 20 (4) the cost of providing such treatment. 21 SEC. 6. The Secretary is authorized to enter intoan 22 agreement for the operation of any program authorized under 23this Act, with a "participating" tribe or tribal organization. 24 A participating tribe or tribal organization isone that has 25 notified the Secretary of its willingness to operatea program 91 1 and to provide 25 per centum of the costs of such a program, 2 either through funding, facilities, or in-kind services. 3 SEC. 7. There is authorized to be appropriated such 4 sums as the Secretary and Congress determine to be neces- 5 sary to carry out the provisions of this Act. 92 Mr. RICHARDSON. We will now proceed with our first witness Mr. Gilbert Pena, the chairman of the All Indian Pueblo Council. He will be accompanied by Mr. Joe Jojola, director of the AIPC Alco- holism Program, and Mr. Tom Lujan, from the Taos Pueblo. In ad- dition to that, Governor Alvino Lucero of Isleta is representing the southern pueblos. Gentlemen, if you could make your way to the podium,we could proceed. We will ctart with Mr. Pena. Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Pena, please proceed. [Prepared statements of Gilbert Pena, Alvino Lucero, and Joe Jojola may be found in appendix In PANEL CONSISTING OF GILBERT PENA, CHAIRMAN, ALL INDIAN PUEBLO COUNCIL; JOE JOJOLA, DIRECTOR OF THE ALL INDIAN PUEBLO COUNCIL ALCOHOLISM PROGRAM; TOM LUJAN, TAOS PUEBLO; AND ALVINO LUCERO, GOVERNOR, PUEBLO OF ISLETA Mr. PENA. Mr. Chairman, welcome to your homefront. Thank you for your concern. Hopefully, with the implementation of this piece of legislation, we can collectively begin to addressa problem that threatens the course of our future. There is an obvious need to develop new and innovative methods of prevention and education to deter the use of alcohol and drug abuse among our young people. However, to begin to address this problem, we need the resources to identify the magnitude of the problem and formulate concrete recommendations that can be im- plemented. Mr. Chairman, I would like to defer any further statementson our testimony to the director of our Alcoholism Program, but before we do that, I would like to extend the courtesy to Governor Alvino Lucero to first make his comments. Mr. LUCERO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to be here this afternoon. I won't go into the writ- ten statement that I have here, but I will just sort of summarize it and the needs on behalf of the Indian Juvenile Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Act. We know that we have many, many of these within our commu- nities that are faced with drug and alcohol abuse. We have been trying to work on this problem for many years. However, I don't believe that we have worked on the most important thing, and that is a preventive type of a system. We start working with our alcoholism, in my estimation, when it is too late. We have programs within our tribes, but the initial thing that I would like to see is a preventive type of system for our use. One of the major causes of death, of course, is accidents that are related to alcohol. The other is cirrhosis of the liver, causing death at about five times the national average. Suicide, that also has a bearing on alcoholism. So these are some of the things that we are faced with within the Indian community, and I believe those are the things that we need to work at and prevent. 93 Now we have statistics in ourI pickedup statistics from my own pueblo, and they are written down for thecommittee and you, Congressman, to take a look atso that you will know exactly what we are talking about. I have testified on behalf of the SouthernPueblos Governors, which I also am the chairman of, and Ihave talked with the rest of the Governors, and they know that thisis a problem throughout, not only in the Pueblo of Isleta, but throughout. So with this, Mr. Richardson, I know thatyou have many other persons that need to testify, so I will let Mr. Jojola make ment, his state- Thank you very much. Mr. RICHARDSON. Thankyou, Governor. Mr. JOJOLA. Before I start, I would like dote. to relate a short anec- It seems that a non-Indianonce asked an Indian from one of the pueblos what course of action would betaken if, for example,an old house located in the villagewas causing illness and death to those children who entered it, but couldnot be destroyed because of historical reasons. The Indian replied, "We wouldwarn the parents and children about the illness and tell them not toenter the house or even play around it." He was then asked what the tribewould do if the children kept entering the old house out of curiosityor whatever reason they may have. The Indian replied again, "We would probablybuild a fence around it and place warning signsto keep the children out." Again he was asked what the tribe would doif the children ig- nored the fence and warnings from theparents. The Indian replied, "We would probably haveto place a 24-hour guard around it to ensure that the kids would not enteror play around the house." To that, the non-Indian asked,"Alcoholism is an illness and is killing many of the young people whouse it. Are you taking the same measures with alcoholism in preventingan illness or death as you would have done with the old house?" In reference to the anecdote I havejust related to you, perhaps many of us have asclumed that merely warning andlecturing about the dangers of alcohol and drugs will deterthem from experimen- tation and eventual use or abuse. We perceivethat what we say or print are sufficient means of prevention. The present rate of alcoholism, alcohol-relatedmorbidity, and al- cohol-related deaths among Native Americansindicates that there is a need te expand on the presenttreatment modalities, including education and prevention. T jntil recently,we have spent much of our time and resources treating the chronic and end-stagealcohol- ics, including patients victimized byalcoholics, and.have done little in terms of prevention and education.I sincerely believe thatwe are long overdue in developing effective preventivemodels that will produce measurable results. The Bureau of Indian Affairs .and theIndian Health Service have at their disposal documents and datato support the fact that alcohol and drug use among the Indians beginat a very early age, perhaps as young as age 10. Reported incidentson juveline delin- quency, behavioral problems in schools and homes andthe treat- 94 ment of injuries are directly related to substance abuse. A conjec- ture can be made that the possibility ofyoung abusers becoming addicted to alcohol and drugs is extremely high and that theprob- lems manifest themselves in catastrophicconsequences. In relation to this, the Census Bureau report of 1980 relatesthat the median age for Native Americans in New Mexico is 20.2years of age, while the median age is about 31years. There appears to be a correlation between the percent of reported alcohol-related, criminal offenses committed by individuals within the medianage group. The assumption is that the younger the population, the higher the percent of alcohol-related offenses. This information and the testimony presented by others here today will undoubtedly impress uponyou the need to develop new and innovative methods of prevention and education specifically addressing the needs of Native American youth. I am pleased to know that bill, the Juvenile Indian Alcoholand Drug Abuse Prevention Act, and its intendedpurposes will provide us with the mechanisms and the resources needed to enhance the present efforts in education, prevention, and treatment ofour youth. This bill will also provide a positive direction for the Bureauof Indian Affairs, the Indian Health Service, and the tribalgovern- ments to work collectively in minimizingE n d curtailing the prob- lems of alcohol and substance abuse. Perhapsnow we can figura- tively build fences and place 24-hour guards in the protectionof our young people. I would like to take this opportunity at this time to addresssome of the issues and make recommendations regarding this bill. Itis without question that the overall intent of this bill is bothtimely and worthwhile and, accordingly, is strongly supported. However, some issues need to be resolved and some of the recommendations offered here should be closely considered by legislators. First, no concise methodology has, toour knowledge, been formu- lated regarding the identification and screening of those Indianju- veniles that might be potential offenders and that would needthe services outlined in the different titles of this bill.