Contrary to popular belief, drugs and alcohol existed in Indigenous cultures prior to European invasion. But before colonisation, there was little substance abuse.
My experience in Australia has been that the social problems around drug abuse are used to justify racist legislation and denial of basic rights and freedoms for our communities.
The language in the media around this, as in Australia, America and around the world, is peppered with judgements and assertions of indigenous inferiority and child-like inability to cope with "newly introduced" European drugs and alcohol.
But the truth is different. We know that most indigenous societies already had drugs and alcohol before European occupation, but with little or no addiction and abuse. So the only thing Europeans have introduced is the inability to cope with drug use, caused by western permissiveness and individualism, eroding traditional values and communal structures.
This, coupled with the outrageous poverty and human rights abuses perpetrated by the invaders against our peoples, ensures that indigenous communities around the world now have horrific social and health problems related to drug abuse. And so the genocide continues.
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