Pubdate: Thu, 25 Dec 2014
Source: North Coast Journal (Arcata, CA)
Column: The Week in Weed
Copyright: 2014 North Coast Journal
Contact:  http://www.northcoastjournal.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2833
Author: Grant Scott-Goforth

POT TURNAROUND ON TRIBAL LANDS

Following a trend of relaxing marijuana policy, the Department of 
Justice announced recently that it will no longer prosecute people 
who grow marijuana on tribal lands.

Though the Obama administration recently said something similar 
regarding states where marijuana has been legalized, the move was 
unanticipated and, in places, unwelcome, according to reports. Many 
tribes prohibit marijuana cultivation in their own bylaws. But the 
announcement has already spurred a movement in the Hoopa Tribe to 
relax a ban on growing on the Hoopa Reservation.

Former Tribal Chairman Clifford Lyle Marshall Sr. penned an op-ed in 
the Dec. 16 issue of the Two Rivers Tribune calling for tribal 
members to support legalization of marijuana cultivation on tribal 
lands. "We live in a poor community with a very weak economy," 
Marshall wrote, adding that the tribe's ban is now the only thing 
standing in the way of "true economic independence and the 
opportunity for tribal citizens to earn a very good middle-class 
income from the sweat of their brow by farming the legal crop of cannabis."

Marshall wrote that the environmental degradations of pot grows have 
been overstated, and suggested that legalizing cultivation could help 
the tribe secure agricultural water rights as well as bring grows out 
of the hills where they surreptitiously flourish.

Marshall submitted a petition overturning the tribe's pot ban to the 
elections office, which will look over the language for legal 
problems and suggest changes or approve it, at which point Marshall 
has 30 days to gather enough signatures to get it on the June ballot.

Leilani Pole, a Hoopa tribal member who advocates for lifting the 
ban, said the tribal government originally prohibited marijuana 
because it feared that saying anything otherwise would jeopardize 
federal funding.

With the U.S. now "saying that natives can in fact have the freedom 
that their tribal councils allow them," Pole said, tribal members may 
choose to overturn the ban. She was uncertain how successful the 
petition will be, citing anti-marijuana propaganda from the "Reefer 
Madness" era that still shapes public opinion, but said that the 
tribe's voters are skewing younger.

While Marshall was happy to use the DOJ's memo as a launching point 
for legalization, other tribes around the U.S. were reticent about 
the announcement.

A Colorado attorney and chairman of the Indian Law and Order 
Commission, which advises the federal government on tribal criminal 
justice issues, told Bloomberg Politics that "We actually have no 
idea what's going on here," adding that the administration had not 
sought his group's input.

And the executive director of the National Congress of American 
Indians told the same reporter she had no idea which tribes the DOJ 
claimed had requested clarity on marijuana issues.

Others have expressed concern about relaxing penalties on drug use in 
communities that have historically been prone to addiction.

"Indian tribes have been decimated by drug use," Seattle attorney 
Anthony Broadman told the Guardian. "Tribal regulations of pot are 
going to have to dovetail with tribal values, making sure marijuana 
isn't a scourge like alcohol or tobacco."

Others expressed concerns about adding complexity to already garbled 
marijuana law - especially in California, where a jumbled network of 
local, state and federal rules make a foggy situation for growers, 
medical marijuana patients and residents.

It will come down to individual tribes - the Yurok Tribe conducted, 
with the help of federal and local law enforcement, a series of raids 
of marijuana grows on tribal lands last year, and reiterated its 
strong opposition to cultivation in a message to the Lost Coast 
Outpost last week.

Others could, as Marshall contends, use marijuana to bolster 
typically impoverished communities with a new economic footing.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom