Elyse Wild Speaks About Addiction in Indigenous Communities
Last Updated: Monday May 5, 2025
(Collegian Media) Pulitzer Center grantee Elyse Wild shared her Pulitzer project on the opioid crisis in Native American communities with South Dakota State University students, faculty, and staff on April 8.
Wild’s project, “Two Medicines: Reporting on How Culture is Healing Native American Communities from the Opioid Crisis,” is a three-part series that examines how Native communities are addressing the crisis.
...
The first article, “‘You Can’t Gangster a Horse’: Native Youth Connect With Culture To Break Cycles of Addiction” introduced John Spence, a citizen of the Gros Ventre tribe. Spence works with youth at the Native American Rehabilitation Association of the Northwest in Oregon at a 90-day prevention program.
Spence specifically works with youth by leading them in Native horsemanship practices. This prevention program aims to help youth with troubled pasts by connecting them to their culture. Wild noted that the success of prevention programs can be difficult to measure.