In Opioid Battle, Cherokee Want Their Day in Tribal Court

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — Cherokee children were disappearing.

At weekly staff meetings, Todd Hembree, the attorney general of the Cherokee Nation, kept hearing about babies in opioid withdrawal and youngsters with addicted parents, all being removed from families. The crush on the foster care system was so great that the unthinkable had become inevitable: 70 percent of the Cherokee foster children in Oklahoma had to be placed in the homes of non-Indians.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/17/health/cherokee-opioid-addiction-pharmacies.html?_r=0