In “Pine Ridge farmer struggles to grow hemp“, Chet Brokaw references Standing Silent Nation, a film by Suree Towfighnia and Courtney Hermann that premiered 3 July 2007 on the PBS programme P.O.V.. The website features interviews, updates, and video clips, including one with James Woolsey, who believes that industrial hemp should be legalised. The Oglala Sioux Tribe passed a tribal ordinance in 1998 allowing its cultivation.
As “Standing Silent Nation” explains, the Oglala Sioux Tribe passed an ordinance in 1998 allowing the cultivation of low-THC hemp on the reservation, which they distinguished from higher-THC marijuana. In April 2000, the White Plumes planted their first crop. In a surprise attack at 6 a.m. on August 24, 2000, federal agents, armed with guns and weed whackers, chopped the plants down in the same manner they would use to eradicate marijuana. This event, and others that followed, raise a number of questions: Why did the government wait for the first crop to reach maturity before acting? Why did FBI and DEA agents raid the fields at daybreak with an array of armor and guns? Why have they continued to raid the White Plumes’ land, even when the hemp grew back of its own accord, and to bring charges that could put Alex in prison for as long as 10 years? What lies behind the government’s persistent objection to hemp?
June 2007 -The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the local district court’s decision will stand, but they also said that there is a hemp farm and there is a marijuana farm, and so they distinguished between the two species of plants. But only Congress can change the law. I wanted to go to the Supreme Court, which is our next step, but I don’t have the $300,000 it’ll take to go there. Besides that, the Supreme Court has always been an enemy to the Lakota. They always diminish our sovereignty, based on the fact of the “doctrine of discovery,” that’s what they use, because there is no criminal case law to prosecute indigenous people in this country.
Senator Paul from Texas has introduced a bill in Congress. It’s in committee and they are waiting for it to be called down for a vote, so I’m supporting them [even though] they left out all the indigenous people, all the nations here in the United States and so we have to create our own bill to go up there. I’m hoping they will pass this bill for the Americans and that mine will just complement theirs, but we have to have this special sovereignty language in ours so that we continue to protect our sovereignty. So we’re left out of the picture, after all these years of struggling. I know Senator Paul probably had good intentions in his mind, however I wish somebody would have communicated to me that they were doing this, and then, we’d have been able to help him out and participate in some fashion. (cont.)
The Hemp Vote
By Mark Leibovich, New York Times, 20 February 2007
It is high time for bipartisan cooperation.
Representative Ron Paul, the libertarian Texas Republican, is sponsoring HR 1009, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2007, a bill that would remove restrictions on cultivating nonpsychoactive industrial hemp on United States farms. Mr. Paul joins nine Democratic co-sponsors, including Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, the vegan Ohio Democrat, who, like Mr. Paul, is running for president. This could prove a burning issue in the 2008 campaign. Or not.
Hemp is a variety of Cannabis sativa, a plant commonly grown for industrial use around the world, but not in the United States. A more potent variety is known to pot smokers worldwide as marijuana. “It is indefensible that the United States government prevents American farmers from growing this crop,” Mr. Paul said in a statement.
Pine Ridge farmer struggles to grow hemp
By Chet Brokaw, Associated Press, 6 July 2007
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| AP Photo/Chet Brokaw — Alex White Plume sat on the back steps of his house near Manderson, S.D., June 26, near some hemp plants that grew from seeds knocked off plants confiscated by federal drug agents. White Plume sought to grow hemp, a cousin of marijuana with only a trace of marijuana’s drug, on his ranch on the Pine Ridge Reservation. |
MANDERSON, S.D. (AP) – Alex White Plume hoped his extended family could make a good living growing hemp when he first planted seeds on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwest South Dakota, but years of fighting with federal drug officials have left him in financial trouble.
The White Plume family planted hemp for three years from 2000 through 2002, but they never harvested a crop. Federal agents conducted raids and cut down the plants each year because U.S. law considers hemp, a cousin of marijuana, to be a drug even though it contains only a trace of the drug in marijuana.
”We had all these plans of grandeur and independence, to lead the way with industrial hemp,” White Plume said. ”None of it worked out.”
White Plume plans to sell much of his ranching operation this fall. He said he probably can keep his house and at least some of his buffalo that graze among the pine-dotted ridges that give the reservation its name. His horses, a truck with license plates reading ”HEMP” and other equipment likely will be sold to pay off some of his debts.
But even though White Plume, a former Oglala Sioux Tribe vice president, lost a court case last year, he is ready to resume the cultivation of hemp if the federal government ever allows it. The plant could help boost the economy of the OST’s poverty-stricken reservation, where unemployment is estimated to be as high as 85 percent, he said.
”I could never climb back up to where I was, but I still believe in hemp, so we’re going to continue to struggle,” White Plume said.
The family’s attempt to grow hemp, which is used to make rope, oils, skin lotion, cloth and a variety of other products, is featured in a ”Point of View” documentary that aired July 3 on Public Broadcasting Service stations nationwide. The film started as a look at hemp growing, but it grew to include a look at Indian treaties and the Lakota culture and tradition, according to filmmakers Suree Towfighnia and Courtney Hermann.
An important part of the story, filmed periodically over a five-year period, deals with the emphasis on extended family among the Lakota, Towfighnia said during a recent visit to White Plume’s home.
White Plume said he used to run a successful trail ride business that faltered after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks because fewer European tourists visited the United States.
He said he became interested in growing hemp in 1998 after seeing country star Willie Nelson promote it. The OST also passed a measure legalizing the growing of hemp on the reservation.
The tribal law should have been enough to allow hemp farming because of the sovereignty granted to the Lakota by treaties, White Plume said.
White Plume planted hemp on his land in 2000, planning to make money by selling the seed to others, but U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents cut down his plants a few days before he intended to harvest them. The DEA also seized similar plantings by his brother and sister in the next two years.
”All that left us in debt and demoralized, trying to figure out what to do because our sovereignty was directly attacked,” White Plume said.
But he laughs when he talks about the hemp plants that still grow on his land, even right outside the back door of his house. The plants spread from seeds knocked off during the DEA raid, he said.
White Plume never was charged with a crime, but the DEA sued him and got a court order to bar him from growing hemp. He argued that the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 gave the Sioux the right to grow hemp.
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals last year ruled against White Plume, saying the treaty did not give tribal members the right to grow the plant. Hemp is also subject to federal drug laws, which require a DEA permit to grow the plant in both its marijuana and hemp forms, the appeals judges said.
”We are not unmindful of the challenges faced by members of the Tribe to engage in sustainable farming on federal trust lands. It may be that the growing of hemp for industrial uses is the most viable agricultural commodity for that region,” the appeals judges wrote.
The appeals court also noted that hemp is used to make many useful products, and the DEA registration process imposes a burden on anyone seeking to grow hemp legally.
”But these are policy arguments better suited for the congressional hearing room than the courtroom,” the appeals judges wrote.
White Plume’s lawyer, Bruce Ellison of Rapid City, said courts have consistently declined to give much consideration to Indian treaties. And the hemp law should be struck down because it is not rational, he said.
”The only argument against it is fears based upon misleading information or misinformation that it can somehow be used as a drug or to hide drugs or something like that, which it can’t,” Ellison said.
Those who oppose legalizing hemp have argued that law officers could have difficulty determining whether plants are drug-laden marijuana or hemp that has only a trace of the drug.
The best hopes for the White Plume family and other farmers who want to grow hemp are measures in Congress and North Dakota’s effort to get the DEA to issue licenses for the production of hemp, Ellison said.
White Plume said he and his family have gone through some tough times, particularly when they were uncertain whether federal officials would charge them with drug crimes for growing hemp.
White Plume now intends to spend time working on environmental protection and treaty issues, such as an effort to regain the Black Hills that were taken from the Lakota more than 125 years ago.
And if farmers ever are allowed to grow hemp, he’s ready to plant another crop.
”We didn’t give up our struggle. We still want to grow hemp and we still got all our plans in shape,” White Plume said.
”It’s not a drug plant,” he said.