Calling all First Nations Canadians - I have an idea, and I need your help!

[Yessica...]

Hello,

I have been working with youth and adults from Canadian native communities since 2001. In a camp together, where the majority of the time I was their cook and friend. And the shit they told me about their lives baffled me.

So much addiction, suicide, violence, abuse, self-injury, depression; everything sad. They were happier people than I was at the time, but they had been through so much more.

I want to do something to help. I never thought I could before, but now, I feel like if I don't try then what's the point?

I have an idea. It is only an idea now, but it could be so much more.

I need your help though. Because only you truly know what happens and how it happens in your communities. I wouldn't even know where to start - each native community is so different from the other.

I would like you to talk to the nurse practitioner/ doctor of your communities about the benefits of medicinal marijuana.

I want you to ask them why they are prescribing addictive pharmaceutical drugs to the native population of Canada (where addiction is rampant) and not MMJ.

I want you to talk to your Chief and council; talk to them about medicinal marijuana. I want you to ask them about your community growing marijuana legally and becoming a Licensed Producer.

I want the government of Canada to move every native community with a LP proposal to the top of the list, and for them to be fast-tracked for quick approval.

I want LP's that are currently wait-listed for approval, to use their resources and partner up with the native communities and do this together.

The Native communities need help and no one is doing anything to help you. Please, let me help. Please help me, help you.

(May be a little Jerry McGuire of me - but you get the point!)

Thank you.

SIDEBAR:

Please; let me save all those folks out there who love to argue and bash people some time.

If you had a hard go of life, I'm sorry, that really sucks. But you will not be able to convince me that you and your "people's" have suffered as much as the Native Canadian community has in the past and CONTINUES to do so.

You think your life has been as tough as there's? Maybe so - but no matter what sex, race, religion you are - you are possibly the exception to the "norm", at least here in Canada. You cannot tell me that every person in Canada of your particular race/ sex/ original nationality have had as hard of a time as the First Nations peoples of Canada. If you did, I would not believe you.

How many people do you know that have committed suicide? How many have you seen killed in front of you? How many years did your parents, family members, or older drunk friends molest you as a child? How many times have you been raped? Beaten up? Stabbed? Shot? How many people do you know addicted to alcohol? OxyContin? Heroin? Morphine? Any number of prescription pills? How many people do you know on methodone? Or that have diabetes? Or that die before the age of 50? Or that have multiple amputations? Or that have to pay $8.00 a litre for milk but they can get a bag-o-smokes for 3 bucks? Or that are unemploeyed? Or that are stuck in a community where older people fear change and the rest of Canada just wants to forget they exist?

This is not to say every native person in Canada has experienced all of those things. But every single one I have talked to has either experienced or known someone to experience every single one of those things.

If you knew all this, and you still have the opinion that you do about "freebies" or "tax-exemptions" or any other bullshit native-hating gibberish - then I pity you. Because you're obviously more fucked up than I have ever been...

Thanks for reading!

 

[sunni]

uhm..ima keep my goddamn comments to myself on this one.....
but you shouldnt generalize that anyone with a different view point on this is fucked up

Natives while were treated wrong, there were plenty of other immigrants/types of people IE races who were treated wrongly as well I know cause my family are immigrants ....

 

[Yessica...]

I'm just saying that RIGHT now, a lot of Native Canadians are living in terrible conditions, in terrible situations.

Everyone has been oppressed, some worse than others for sure. But I don't have a DeLorean to go back in time and do anything with the past. I'm talking about now.

 

[Yessica...]

I was trying to discourage the "freebie's" speak, saying that they don't deserve extra help. They NEED help. The current system is broken.

I've worked with a lot of Natives from remote areas of Canada. There are no jobs, living is more expensive than most people could afford, and the system is corrupt.

I just think they are Canadians, that need some help.

And if growing pot could help them, then why not?

 

[gb123]

I was going to bother a couple good native buddies of mine and a few old friends to set up their own LP just for thier own reserve.
They have enough pull in their community to do so. Government funded of course
The truly funny part, is that HC can't have any say in their matters.

 

[Yessica...]

I just think an LP comes to town/ is the town - and BAM - jobs, so many jobs!

 

[gb123]

The passed few years our government has funded new businesses that have been proposed and set up. Weather they make it or not.
Mostly selling smokes .

Sadly, it's easier to get hand outs than it is to motivate people to work. There's much more to this whole deal. I could go on and on.
Truth is, most don't know enough to understand.
We put them where they are and we pay them to stay put. Weather people wanna believe that or not?!?! ....

 

[Yessica...]

I've told the guys that just flew home today to their fly-in reserve, to ask the nurse practitioner for alternative medication. One guy has been addicted to Oxy's for years, for a sore back...
Weed could help his back. It's like every second native person I talk to is addicted to prescription medication that a doctor has prescribed. It's just fucked that it keeps getting prescribed, and re-filled, and everything.

It seems like an evil plot in a movie...keep them medicated to keep them weak...

 

[sunni]

so the communities youve been too, were you talking to the people who generally are actually interested in their cultures, go to pow wows, are apart of the native community with, who help other natives, apart of the elders
or were you just going round on a rez, and seeing whats its like asking 16 year old kids what they think?

Because theres an extreme difference between the two "generations" and types so to speak, Im lucky I look native from being italian and can speak ojibway and yes I love the native culture and I do fully agree with their rights i am by NO means racist to natives.

im just saying step on my rez i live on and see how fucking scary it is if youre white. a few elders, yes and a few good canadates for their rights, like one of my friends, but most of the natives here.....its sad man beating the shit out of anyone , drugs, violence, 5 kids before 16

you can create jobs and jobs and jobs but you cant motivate anyone to get off their bum stop drinking and go to work. and thats the sad truth of it native, white, yellow , green whatever.
the fact of the matter is WE PAY for natives to go to college,university , ...and none of the kids do it! whats going to be difference when we create jobs specific for them? same turn out a few will and the rest will sit at home and do the same thing

yeah the natives DO need help , but so does the rest of canada. IT IS NOT just natives who are addicted to pharmas, its the white people too, and everyone else in canada.

You wanna know why natives are addicted to drugs and alcohol, because they have addiction problems, they physically have genetic problems in their bodies, its not every native, but just like how other people have alcoholics int he family its possible you can become one as well, sadly the natives have an extremely higher rate of it due to their genetic make up

I defiantly dont think its an evil movie plot because it doesnt just happen to natives.


it took my an extremely long time to write that because i did not want to seem racist, or rude to your opinion

 

[sunni]

you ever seen moccasin flats on aptn?
thats pretty much how it is here. fucking scary man your right they need help but they barely effin accept it
i have many native friends who choose to LIVE OFF rez and work for a living, in helping other natives get better and do the same

 

[gb123]

as they say.....

that's life on the Rez eh .

 

[Yessica...]

I don't think you're a racist! I just was trying to discourage the kind of people that live in my city/ town "Thunder Bay" and actually HATE native people.

I just think that a lot of the "bad behaviour", is because of how shitty things have been for them. I honestly don't know how ANYONE lives on a reserve and survives to tell the tale.

The kids I worked with lived in the camp I was cooking at, 6 week programs and I did it for 5 or 6 years. I got to know them pretty well. Then I worked with other Native people in tree-planting camps, fire-fighting camps, all when they were working. The work was just few and far between for them.

And for those of them who did travel to the closest "city", Thunder Bay - they were treated terribly. Not being served in bars, people yelling things at them. Maybe it would be different in a more multicultural place, like Toronto. But in T-Bay, shit's rough for the Native-folk.

 

[gb123]

That town hates natives because they think the native netted all their one pound pickerel out of Nipissing.
Truth is.... the fish came back. Even a fish process plant couldn't put a dent in the lake with how any business goes.
Just sayin.

 

[sunni]

life on rez is sad depressing and scary , i do feel bad for native culture, but they do have access at least here in many places for addictions consoling , trained professionals trained in Native Consoling , but how many take advantage?
There IS help, but people refuse help ...thats not just limited to natives thats limited to all groups of people


I think saying their bad behavior is because how shitty things for them is, is honestly an excuse I refuse to let anyone hide behind that because I was addicted to drugs for many years , and i know that sounds harsh but i have many native friends who respect their culture grew up with all the issues and still became great people.

Dont forget i too live in a shitty northern little ontario town too so i do hear ya

 

[Yessica...]

Off the top of my head, these are a few things that have haunted me...

- "my uncle got axed" - a boy, 15 years old - talking about seeing his uncle killed in front of him in a casual manner.
- fuck you carved into the leg - a girl, 16 years old
- "I'm stupid", from huffing gas - 18 years old - a kid that talked about huffing gas, and after his 1 week S100 training program he just wrote "i am stupid" accross the whole test.
- beaten and molested and dropped at her grandmothers at age 3 or 4 - 16 year old girl who got kicked out of the program for bringing in booze and smoking pot.
- parents stealing their money from their accounts for booze and drugs.
- drinking with alcoholic parents with 1 hour off in town, 16 years old.
- having babies at 15
- drinking 4L of pepsi a day (no one ever told them differently)
- kids, dozens of kids over the years coming into the program to detox from any number of things.

If I was born, the way some of my freinds were born - I would not have survived. I would have been on heroin as soon as I could get some, and then probably committed suicide before I eveb had the chance to get pregnant at 15.

I just don't get it. I had a such an easy life, comparatively, and I'm STILL uber fucked up. How do you go through soooooo much shit, and still be able to get up in the monring?

 

[Yessica...]

I just want doctors to prescribe them something that won't kill them...MMj seems like a good fit.

 

[gb123]

shitty northern little ontario town


People in Toronto might say the same about where they live Miss.

 

[sunni]

I just want doctors to prescribe them something that won't kill them...MMj seems like a good fit.

their canadians and they will have to go through the proper canadian law until we decriminalize ya know

 

[gb123]

I know a Native Nurse practitioner who recently got her ticket.
I'm sure she will go back to her reserve but I'm also sure at this time, she cannot sign.

 

[bigmanc]

I just want doctors to prescribe them something that won't kill them...MMj seems like a good fit.

Marijuana doesnt make the government money, once they figure out how to make money from it that is when it will be available and openly prescribed. Unfortunate but thats the way it is.