 The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe is facing the opioid epidemic head-on with their first-ever opioid response summit. Reporter Cheryl Moore tells us about their strategies. For some time now, officials with the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe have been finding ways to tackle the opioid epidemic head-on. Today, they held their first-ever opioid response summit to talk about the issues and find solutions. I have a council, myself, we're all concerned about our membership here and people have been crying out for help and we want to do what we can to help our people heal. Opioids are a huge problem and, you know, we're seeing, technically I'd like to say, you know, that, you know, native people are the first victims of chemical warfare. We see that opioids are just kind of a perpetuation of that whole system. The summit featured a number of professional speakers from all over the country. There were also panel discussions and live demonstrations. The summit was planned with a cultural aspect in mind. Just knowing that we have identified our keynote speakers, and then magically putting it all together using our smudge and using our drum and using our elders, our spirituality, and our language. What you see today is only the beginning for the opioid summit. In the future, they hope to grow their audience and grow their vendors. We want to keep this dialogue ongoing so we keep talking about this education and awareness so we can kind of start getting this message out to our communities and our families on how concerned we are about what's happening to the young people these days. The main goal of today's summit was to find solutions, but the panel knows it won't happen overnight. The next step will be taking the information gathered from the summit and putting it to use in the community. I think that's probably the main focus is how do we bring wellness into the community? How do we heal the family? How do we heal the child? How do we heal the parents? But the community as a whole, how are we healing the community as the main focus? Reporting in Walker, Sheryl Moore, Lakeland News. The opioid response summit will continue tomorrow at the Northern Lights Casino in Walker. It starts at 8 30 in the morning. All are welcome to attend. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.