Cigarettes Keep Tribe Puffing Along
Saturday, 28 November 1998
M A C Y , N E B . (AP)
ON AN American Indian reservation where bingo, health clubs and casinos
have failed to ease the burden of poverty, cigarettes may be the dubious
blessing that keeps the tribe afloat.
The Omaha Tribe has converted a 2,000-seat tribal hall into a factory
humming with machines that roll North Carolina tobacco with paper and
filters and stuff the cigarettes into packs, cartons and finally cases.
"The idea was to make some money and to create a few jobs," said Elmer
Blackbird, Omaha tribal chairman.
The Omaha need both.
Unemployment among the 3,200 or so Omaha who live on the northeast
Nebraska reservation exceeds 70 percent.
Gambling profits, a boon for so many other tribes, have eluded the Omaha.
The tribe opened a casino several years ago in Onawa, Iowa, but when the
state legalized riverboat gambling, the tribe's remote gaming location lost
75 percent of its take.
Finally, the tribe settled on menthol, full flavor, light and ultralight Omahas.
"We're thinking about buying some more equipment so we can make
100s," said Franklin Dick, general manager of the only tribally owned
cigarette factory in the country. The longer-style cigarettes, Dick said, are
in demand by the bargain hunters the Omaha brand is after.
"People tell us that if we can just make 100s, business will really take off,"
Dick said.
So far, the Omaha Nation Tobacco Co. plant produces more than 40,000
cartons a week - far short of even 1 percent of the domestic cigarette
market. But that is business enough to employ 14 workers - a dozen
Omahas and two nontribal technicians. More than 200 other members of
the tribe have applied for jobs.
Most of the cigarettes sold are subject to state taxes. But the tribe prices
its smokes low - at roughly half what major brands sell for - and has
tapped tribal stores that sell cigarettes at roadside shops nationwide.
If the Omaha tribe could manage to command a full 1 percent of the
cigarette market, a federal "buy Indian" law would require the cigarettes to
be carried at every American military outpost.
"We couldn't handle that volume yet," said Dick. "But down the road that
would mean quite a few jobs."
On the Omaha reservation the cigarettes sell for 80 cents a pack. On the
Cheyenne reservation in Oklahoma a carton of 10 packs sells for $7.50.
"We ship them everywhere, from Long Island to Washington state," said
Dick. "They're really catching on at other reservations."
Tribes make for an especially good smoking market; so much so that
Indian health officials call it a serious concern.
In nearly every category - men, women, high school seniors - smoking
among Indians is about 30 percent above the national average, although
the rates vary widely from tribe to tribe. Studies by the Indian Health
Service blamed 10 percent of Indian deaths on tobacco.
"It's a very serious health issue among Indians," said W. Craig
Vanderwagen, the director of clinical and preventative services for the
Indian Health Service.
That fact has some Omaha feeling uncomfortable about the tribe's tobacco
business.
"I live among my Omaha people, and we're all pitiful. You know, we're in
terrible poverty," said Barry Webster, director of the Four Hills of Life
Wellness Center in Macy. "The cigarette plant is good in the sense that it's
providing jobs. But I hate to see our people hurting themselves with the
smoking."
Still, the plant keeps coughing up cigarettes by the case, a small but hopeful
economic engine on a reservation with virtually no other Indian businesses.
"Management of any new kind of business is tough in areas like this
because you don't have somebody with the specialized experience just
sitting around locally," said Russell Bradley of the U.S. Bureau of Indian
Affairs. "But as time goes on, as they learn how to run the operation, the
plant's got real potential." |
