Hemp Controversy Growing On Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
by Angela K. Brown

August 14, 1998 - Associated Press

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - Some members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe are moving forward with plans to cultivate hemp, even if they have to take the Drug Enforcement Administration to federal court.

Hemp has grown wild for decades on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, despite the DEA's repeated attempts - spraying and dousing with chemicals, setting fields on fire - to wipe it out. Growing hemp, a cousin to marijuana, is illegal.

The Land-Use Association, a group of tribal members in the small reservation town of Slim Buttes, wants to turn the tall hemp stalks into paper, mats, construction blocks for housing and other products. The group says the moneymaking venture would create jobs and homes in the impoverished area.

Milo Yellow Hair, the tribe's vice president, said the reservation has struggled with the issue for at least two years and finally decided to proceed with the hemp project after other economic-development initiatives failed.

"Now we are left to tackle the so-called gray area initiatives," he said. "When they hear the word hemp, they think marijuana. Then they think drug use, and then it becomes a police state. But that's not what we want to do."

Hemp and marijuana are both varieties of the cannabis sativa plant, but hemp typically contains less than 1 percent of the narcotic chemical THC. Marijuana plants contain 10 percent to 20 percent THC, which makes pot smokers high.

Two weeks ago, the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council changed a tribal law to allow for making products out of hemp. The revised code says a plant with less than 1 percent of THC is considered industrial hemp and is legal.

But according to federal law, growing hemp - no matter how low its THC content - is the same as growing marijuana. And the same criminal penalties apply to people growing either plant.

Anyone who wants to grow hemp plants legally for industrial use must get permission from the DEA, said Karen Schreier, U.S. attorney for South Dakota.

"The same rules apply on and off the reservation," she said.

Yellow Hair said the tribe will apply for a DEA certificate of registration to grow the hemp, but the process is not easy.

Schreier said she does not think the DEA has ever approved an application to grow hemp plants. Larry Johnson, resident agent-in-charge of the DEA office in Sioux Falls, said the tribe's chances are not good.

"I seriously doubt that they will be able to meet the requirements," he said.

Tom Cook, who is in charge of the Land-Use Association's hemp project, said asking the DEA for permission would be a "useless endeavor." For now, the tribal group plans to proceed without breaking the law.

He said members can do that by touching only the hemp stalks, which do not contain THC, and by avoiding the leaves and seeds, which do contain the chemical. The stalks are the parts needed to make paper and other products.

Although federal law considers that action illegal, the land-use group is following the recently revised tribal law, Cook said. The only way to resolve the dispute between the federal and tribal laws is going to court, he said.

"At some point the tribe will be before a federal judge filing an injunction against the DEA," he said. "The question is whether the tribe has sovereignty over its own land."

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