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Native American Tribes Look to Cash In on Hemp, but Will the Feds Let Them?

Cecily Hilleary

   WASHINGTON - The 2018 Farm Bill legalized industrial hemp and gave
   Native American tribes, as sovereign entities, the same rights as
   states to control and regulate its production. This month, tribal
   farmers across the nation will harvest their first legitimate crop,
   hoping to cash in on a global market worth billions of dollars. But
   whether their product will make it to market this year is still up in
   the air.

   In early June, Oglala Lakota tribe member Alex White Plume gathered
   together three generations of his extended family to plant their
   first-ever legal industrial hemp crop on land he owns on the Pine Ridge
   Reservation in South Dakota.

   After [1]fighting for two decades for the right to grow hemp, it was a
   joyful occasion, marked by prayer and song. But as the summer draws to
   a close, White Plume has grown increasingly anxious.

   "I'm three weeks away from harvest," he said. "Right now, it's just
   tense. And sometimes it's overbearing, cause you don't know whether you
   are going to be able to sell or not."

References

   1. https://www.votehemp.com/resources/hemp-legal-cases/white-plume-hemp-cultivation-sovereignty-case/alex-white-plume-government-memorandum/

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