A NATIVE AMERICAN tribe is suing some of the world’s largest brewers, claiming they knowingly contributed to devastating alcohol-related problems on one reservation.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota said it is demanding $500 million in damages for the cost of health care, social services and child rehabilitation caused by chronic alcoholism on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, which encompasses some of the most impoverished counties in the United States.

One in four children born on the reservation suffer from foetal alcohol syndrome or foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and the average life expectancy is estimated between 45 and 52 years – the shortest in North America except for Haiti, according to the lawsuit. The average American life expectancy is 77.5 years.

The lawsuit filed in US District Court of Nebraska also targets four beer stores in Whiteclay, a Nebraska town near the reservation’s border that, despite having only about a dozen residents, sold nearly 5million cans of beer in 2010.

Tribal leaders and activists blame the Nebraska businesses for chronic alcohol abuse and bootlegging on the Pine Ridge reservation, where all alcohol is banned. They say most of the stores’ customers come from the reservation, which spans southwest South Dakota and dips into Nebraska.

“You cannot sell 4.9 million cans of beer and wash your hands like Pontius Pilate, and say we’ve got nothing to do with it being smuggled,” said Tom White, the tribe’s Omaha-based attorney.

This news report shows some of the alcohol problems in Whiteclay:

(Video: HDNetLLC)

Owners of the four beer stores in Whiteclay were unavailable or declined comment Thursday when contacted by The Associated Press. A spokeswoman for Anheuser-Busch InBev Worldwide said she was not yet aware of the lawsuit, and the other four companies being sued – SAB Miller, Molson Coors Brewing Company, MIllerCoors LLC and Pabst Brewing Company – did not immediately return messages.

The lawsuit alleges that the beer makers and stores sold to Pine Ridge residents knowing they would smuggle the alcohol into the reservation to drink or resell. The beer makers supplied the stores with “volumes of beer far in excess of an amount that could be sold in compliance with the laws of the state of Nebraska” and the tribe, tribal officials allege in the lawsuit.

The vast majority of Whiteclay’s beer store customers have no legal place to consume alcohol since it’s banned on Pine Ridge, which is just north, state law prohibits drinking outside the stores and the nearest town that allows alcohol is more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) south, said Mark Vasina, president of the group Nebraskans for Peace.

- Additional reporting by Michael Freeman