Tribe sues firms for drink woes

An American Indian tribe is suing some of the world’s largest beer makers, claiming they knowingly contributed to devastating alcohol-related problems on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota said it is demanding $500 million (€376m) in damages for the cost of healthcare, social services and child rehabilitation caused by chronic alcoholism on the reservation.

The lawsuit names Anheuser-Busch InBev Worldwide, SAB Miller, Molson Coors Brewing Company, MillerCoors LLC and Pabst Brewing Company as defendants.

The lawsuit says one in four children born on the reservation suffers from foetal alcohol syndrome or foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. The average life expectancy is estimated between 45 and 52 years, the shortest in North America except for Haiti, according to the law-suit. The average life expectancy in the United States is 77.5 years.

The lawsuit filed in the US District Court of Nebraska also targets four offsite beer stores in Whiteclay, a Nebraska town which, despite having only about a dozen residents sold nearly five million cans of beer in 2010. Most of its customers come from the reservation on the town’s border.

Leaders of the tribe blame the Whiteclay businesses for bootlegging on the reservation, where all alcohol is banned.

The lawsuit alleges that the beer makers supplied the stores with “volumes of beer far in excess of an amount that could be sold in compliance with the laws of the state of Nebraska” and the tribe.

The reservation has struggled with alcoholism and poverty for generations, despite an alcohol ban in place since 1832. Pine Ridge legalised alcohol in 1970 but restored the ban two months later, and an attempt to allow it in 2004 died after a public outcry.