Cherokee children play games to fight drugs

[Cherokee Kids vs. Drugs]

Methamphetamine Prevention . . .

"Many meth labs are operating on Indian lands across the country, where they are contaminating individual properties and the environment at large, endangering children, and putting law enforcement, firefighters, and the general community at risk."

Playing Games To Keep Drugs Away

There's nothing quite as innocent as playing marbles, and there's nothing quite as sinister as methamphetamine.

For Cherokee children in Oklahoma, the traditional game of Cherokee marbles has been passed down for generations, but in the past 2 years it has taken on a different meaning. At public elementary and middle schools across 14 counties, a demonstration program called Use Your Marbles, Don't Use Meth sets up the game as a strategy to prevent use of methamphetamine, or meth, which is the fastest growing drug threat and the most prevalent synthetic drug manufactured in the United States.

Clandestine meth production, distribution, and use are having a big impact on the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, a state with approximately 1,400 meth labs. Many meth labs are operating on Indian lands across the country, where they are contaminating individual properties and the environment at large, endangering children, and putting law enforcement, firefighters, and the general community at risk. The Cherokee Nation's Principal Chief Chad Smith has asked for a 50-percent reduction in meth use during the next 5 years.

According to Levi Keehler, Methamphetamine Prevention Coordinator for Behavioral Health Services for the Cherokee Nation, prevention specialists have to get away from the shotgun approach of going into a school, saying
"don't use drugs," and leaving. Long-term investment and involvement of the community are necessary.

The Cherokee Nation Methamphetamine Task Force—which includes U.S. Marshals and many local, state, and federal organizations involved with human services, environmental services, and housing—stresses to communities that they must support prevention and treatment activities themselves and that task force members can act only as technical advisors.

Keehler developed the marbles program and a chess program called Keeping Meth in Check to use the games as metaphors for positive life choices. The two programs are part of a comprehensive approach to the meth problem that focuses on enforcement, control of sales of precursor chemicals, environmental cleanup, child protection, prevention, and treatment.

Keehler visited eight schools that have high percentages of American Indians and contacted more than 100 schools, many of which are tiny country schools. Oklahoma does not have any reservations—Indian lands are spread out and the tribal and non-tribal boundaries make for what is often referred to as "checkerboard lands"—so it difficult to find high concentrations of American Indian youth. That and a lack of funding are challenges that hamper Keehler's ability to spread the programs' message easily.

When he talks to children about meth and other drug use, Keehler reinforces the importance of making the right moves at the right time. "It's all in the way that you plan," Keehler said. "I also tell them you have to think ahead a lot of times."

Cherokee marbles are traditionally made of stone. Players team up on a course and attempt to get the marbles into small holes in the ground while playing defense and attempting to knock out their opponents. The game, which Keehler describes as "partly croquet, partly golf, but really neither," teaches strategy, camaraderie, and critical thinking. Elders have expressed interest in teaching the game and how to make the stone marbles because they want to protect their culture. Keehler notes that he gets a better response to his meth education classes at the end of the school year from children who play the game as part of his program.

With chess, Keehler tells students that the game is a battle. "That's kind of like life," he said. When there are problems, he tells them, you have to analyze them and not turn to drugs as the solution. "There's always a way out," Keehler said, adding that he hopes that next year at least one county will have a chess club in every school.

For more information contact:

Levi Keehler
Methamphetamine Prevention Coordinator for Behavioral Health Services for the Cherokee Nation
918-458-6285

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