MANDERSON -- The third time was a charm for Alex White Plume and his family as they quietly harvested their first crop of industrial hemp this week. "It really felt good," White Plume said Friday. "Just like a sense of relief." This was the third straight year the White Plume family planted hemp on their land near Manderson. Two years in a row, federal agents confiscated the plants before they could be harvested, although the U.S. government did not file any charges against any of the White Plumes, who planned to produce and sell hemp oil and other products from the plants. [continues 485 words]
SIOUX FALLS -- Larry and Honey Dodge, who are campaigning for a ballot measure they say would give those accused of a crime more say in court, are bumping into an obstacle they hadn't counted on. Their proposal is labeled Constitutional Amendment A on the Nov. 5 general election ballot. But as they campaign, some voters think the Dodges are experts on the Amendment A that was defeated in the June 4 primary. That measure dealt with the state's corporate farming laws and spurred an emotional debate among farmers and farm groups. [continues 809 words]
SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota -- South Dakota voters will be able to decide whether to legalize hemp in November's election. More than 13,000 signatures calling for the South Dakota Industrial Hemp Act to go on the ballot were turned in to the Secretary of State's office, state Election Supervisor Chris Nelson said Tuesday. If passed, the proposal would draw a legal distinction between hemp and marijuana, paving the way for the legal development of hemp in the state. Under the proposal, hemp would be a legal crop if it contains no more than 1 percent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the substance in marijuana that makes people high. [continues 291 words]
Sunday, April 07, 2002 - MANDERSON, S.D. - Twice, Alex White Plume planted his crop. Twice, despite the unforgiving conditions here on the edge of the Badlands, it grew green and lush and tall. And twice, before he could harvest it, federal agents swooped in with guns and weed whackers, confiscating his plants and toting them away in U-Hauls. White Plume grows hemp, marijuana's milder cousin, but still too closely related for comfort for the Drug Enforcement Administration. Plant again, they've told White Plume, and they'll be back with their lawn trimmers. [continues 1264 words]
MANDERSON -- Winter lingers here, like the last guest at a party. It returns in mid-April, maybe once more in May, leaving one last blizzard before finally giving way to spring. Still, Alex White Plume knew the time had come to plant a third crop of industrial hemp on Friday. "Last week, we woke up and heard the meadowlarks," he explained, so he knew the seeds would survive, even if cold weather returned. "Actually, I think that makes it stronger." Adversity, if not cold, seems to have made the White Plume family stronger, too. Friday marked the third time they have planted hemp on their land near Manderson. [continues 932 words]
Alex White Plume, his wife Debbie and their children, make up an average Lakota family residing on the Pine Ridge Reservation, with one exception. For two summers they have planted and cultivated crops of hemp on the supposed sovereign soil of the Pine Ridge, nay - - - - - Oglala Lakota Nation. Instead of standing up against the thugs of the Drug Enforcement Administration as they mowed White Plume's crops to the ground for the second time this summer, Oglala Sioux Tribal President, John Steele, stood silently watching with his thumb stuck securely in his hip pocket. [continues 820 words]
from the Media Awareness Project WEEKLY: The DrugSense Weekly, the originial drug policy weekly on the 'net, has the largest email and web following of any single item we provide. Distributed late Fridays, you can always check the current issue at http://www.drugsense.org/current.htm or sign up to receive it by email in text or HTML web page format at http://www.drugsense.org/news.htm BY EMAIL: Our most popular email service is called the DrugNews Digest (DND). Each digest contains an average of about ten news items - but only the first paragraph or two of the item along with a link to the entire article. Here is an example (spaces not in the DND's have been added so that this example, as archived, will appear as close to correct as possible): [continues 2376 words]
At issue: Should South Dakota Farmers Be Allowed To Produce Industrial Hemp? In a surprise move, the delegates of the South Dakota Farmers Union unanimously endorsed the proposal to legalize industrial hemp growing in the state. The Public Opinion supports the idea of taking issues to the voting public, but we cannot endorse the proposition of growing industrial hemp. We are not sure how it came about, but the 70-plus delegates to the annual convention of the South Dakota Farmers Union last weekend in Sioux Falls unanimously endorsed a petition drive to legalize industrial hemp production. The proposal has been beaten down couple of times in past legislative sessions for various reasons. [continues 572 words]
At first glance, chances are that nobody would expect longtime Mitchell resident Gladys Baldwin to be a hemp supporter. But Baldwin - a retired realtor, the daughter of a farmer, an active community member and a senior citizen - is among those who say it may be a good idea to legalize the growth and production of industrial hemp in South Dakota. A petition, started by Hermosa artist Bob Newland, is criss-crossing its way through South Dakota, hoping to secure enough signatures to land an initiated measure on the 2002 ballot that would ask voters to allow the growth and production of hemp. [continues 1510 words]
A petition is currently circulating in the state to put the issue of whether growing industrial hemp should be legal onto the November 2002 ballot. As the absurdity of the current laws banning hemp become more and more apparent, this debate will arise more frequently until logic - and new laws - prevail.Before I explain myself and any of you accuse me of being a hippy, or worse, let me throw a few facts your way: While it is part of the same family as marijuana, industrial hemp usually contains less than 1 percent of the hallucinogen tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). There is no getting high off it, in other words. But because it does belong to the same family, under a federal law hemp cannot be grown commercially in the United States. [continues 629 words]
S.D. Farmers Union Offers Endorsement A petition drive to legalize industrial hemp production has won the support of the South Dakota Farmers Union. The farm group voted unanimously to support the petition during its annual convention last weekend in Sioux Falls. Backers need 13,010 valid signatures by May 2002 to get the initiated measure on the November general election ballot. "I'm walking on air. I couldn't be happier," said Bob Newland, president of SoDak-NORML, an affiliate of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. "I'm pleased not so much that they just endorsed our efforts, I knew they were generally in favor of it, but the wonderful thing about it is, there was not a single voice of dissent." [continues 448 words]
SIOUX FALLS, SD -- The South Dakota Farmers Union is supporting a petition drive to legalize industrial hemp production. The group's delegates were unanimous in supporting the petition during their convention last weekend in Sioux Falls. Supporters of the petition need 13,010 valid signatures by May 2002 to get the measure on the November election ballot, an effort that will be helped if rank-and-file union members sign. The measure would allow the planting, harvesting, possession and sale of industrial hemp in South Dakota if it contained no more than 1 percent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the substance in marijuana that makes people high. [continues 230 words]
By any measure, Alex White Plume is a remarkable man. Now 49, he was raised in the unconscionable United States' ghetto called Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, surviving a typical reservation youth-hood of fighting, drinking and womanizing. Undergoing a spiritual transition, White Plume initiated the annual Big Foot Ride in 1986. It commemorates the blizzard-lashed journey of Big Foot's band through the Badlands to their mass murder at Wounded Knee in December, 1890. For fifteen years, the Ride has offered opportunity for participants -- Indians and non-Indians -- to connect through shared experience with those who endured the journey, massacre, and aftermath. [continues 813 words]
The Federal Government Should Grant A Waiver To Native Nations Which Seek To Legalize The Production Of Industrial Hemp. The August raid on the Pine Ridge hemp crop on the White Plume Tiospaye land, illustrates a shameful era in the Drug Enforcement Agency. Over the long term, the DEA's policies and actions set back the economic, environmental, and public health needs of not only Native America, but also the broader American community. Many Native nations, including the Oglala Lakota, Navajo, and Saginaw Chippewa, to name a few, have expressed an interest in industrial hemp production. [continues 1147 words]
Politics: The Ceaseless Argument Over Who Gets To Do What To Whom, For How Long, And Against What Degree Of Dissent. By any measure, Alex White Plume is a remarkable man. Now 49, he was raised in the unconscionable United States' ghetto called Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, surviving a typical reservation youth-hood of fighting, drinking and womanizing. Undergoing a spiritual transition, White Plume initiated the annual Big Foot Ride in 1986. It commemorates the blizzard-lashed journey of Big Foot's band through the Badlands to their mass murder at Wounded Knee in December, 1890. For fifteen years, the Ride has offered opportunity for participants -- Indians and non-Indians -- to connect through shared experience with those who endured the journey, massacre, and aftermath. [continues 814 words]
Non-Potent Version Could Be A Cash Crop, Tribe Argues As Alex White Plume tells it, the raid began with the rising sun and the whir of helicopter blades. Agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration spread out across his property on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, nestled by the Black Hills the Sioux consider sacred, looking for drugs. "One of them came running towards me, and he pointed his gun and told me to halt," White Plume says. "In my mind, I was going to jail." [continues 1700 words]
Petition Drive For Signatures To Target Weekend Concertgoers Organizers of a petition drive to legalize hemp production in South Dakota hope to obtain thousands of signatures this weekend. More than 20 people gathered Wednesday at Great Plains Coffee House in Sioux Falls to discuss gathering signatures at the Seventh Annual "Bash in the Grass" concert event near Volga. Petitions began circulating in May. Backers need 13,010 valid signatures by May 2002 to get the initiated measure on the November 2002 general election ballot. [continues 378 words]
Federal agents have destroyed Alex White Plume's industrial hemp crop for the second year running. But the courts may soon decide whether Native Americans can grow THC-free cannabis. For the second year in a row, the War on Drugs has come to the Pine Ridge Sioux Indian reservation. On the morning of July 30, federal agents arrived at tribal member Alex White Plume's farm outside Manderson, South Dakota, cutting down and hauling away three acres of industrial hemp. [continues 655 words]
MANDERSON, S.D. - For four hours under the sun of a hot and humid July morning Alex and Percy White Plume, their sisters Ramona and Alta, and a dozen of their children watched agents from the FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency toil with weed-whackers and machetes, cutting down the family's second hemp crop on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The family's emotions ran from regret, disappointment and resentment to pain and sadness, but they recognized that allowing the eradication would guarantee no member of the family would face arrest or prosecution for planting or cultivating the herb. [continues 1953 words]
PINE RIDGE - Alex White Plume had to watch his tiospaye's hemp crop cut down by federal agents on Monday, July 30 for the second time. U.S. Attorney Michelle Tapken reacted quickly to the letter from Oglala Sioux Tribal President John Steele ordering federal law enforcement officers to have no further contact with tribal members regarding the cultivation of industrial hemp. Tapken ordered a search of a field consisting of approximately three acres three miles north of Manderson, South Dakota on land of the White Plume tiospaye. A consent to search document to be signed by Alex White Plume as head of the White Plume tiospaye and Bruce Ellison as attorney for the White Plume tiospaye was mailed to Ellison at his Rapid City law office. White Plume and Ellison each signed the document. [continues 1304 words]
