FAIRBANKS \u2014 Four people have been banished from a remote Alaska tribal village for dealing methamphetamine, community leaders said Thursday.<\/p>\n
Twenty-five residents of Allakaket confronted the suspected dealers and put them on a Tuesday afternoon flight, Allakaket Chief PJ Simon told the Daily News-Miner (http:\/\/bit.ly\/2mt3fQ4 ).<\/p>\n
\u201cThe suspected meth dealer was armed and carrying a pistol,\u201d Simon said. \u201cWe all went there \u2014 25 people. The second chief and myself went to the person\u2019s room. We didn\u2019t know if we would be shot. We were the unarmed SWAT team. We showed up at their house and escorted them out of town.\u201d<\/p>\n
The banishment came after an emotional tribal council meeting attended by residents who braved temperatures of 40 degrees below zero to get to it. The village, like many remote Alaska communities, has no Alaska State Trooper post or Village Public Safety Officer.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomebody strange, nonlocal, came in with someone who lived in Allakaket. They were giving meth to underage girls for free,\u201d Simon said. \u201cThey were giving it out to young men also. This is crazy. This is stuff we never thought we\u2019d see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Banishment is an action the tribe can take as a sovereign government. Although it is rare in Allakaket, leaders previously banished someone for a year after the person brought five gallons of whiskey and cocaine and methamphetamines to the village.<\/p>\n
The village takes a hard stance against drug dealers because of an influx of cocaine and LSD in the 1980s, Simon said. Between 1980 and 1984, 22 suicides in the village were attributed to drug addiction when the population stood at about 200.<\/p>\n
The tribe does not tolerate drug dealers but is willing to help people struggling with addition, Simon said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have loving family and friends who are willing to embrace you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FAIRBANKS \u2014 Four people have been banished from a remote Alaska tribal village for dealing methamphetamine, community leaders said Thursday. Twenty-five residents of Allakaket confronted the suspected dealers and put them on a Tuesday afternoon flight, Allakaket Chief PJ Simon told the Daily News<\/a>-Miner (http:\/\/bit.ly\/2mt3fQ4 ). \u201cThe suspected meth dealer was armed and carrying a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-8149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8149"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=8149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}