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Drug War Chronicle, Issue #908 -- 10/29/15
Phillip S. Smith, Editor, psmith@drcnet.org http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/908

A Publication of StoptheDrugWar.org
David Borden, Executive Director, borden@drcnet.org
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"

Table of Contents:

1. DOUBLE STANDARD? MARIJUANA OR HEMP? DEA INDIAN TRIBE RAID RAISES
QUESTIONS [FEATURE]
The legal marijuana states are creating massive industries without
significant federal interference, but it's a different story on the rez. http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2015/oct/29/double_standard_marijuana_or_hem


2. BERNIE SANDERS SEEKS END TO FEDERAL MARIJUANA PROHIBITION IN THE SENATE
A leading, major party presidential candidate calls for an end to
federal marijuana prohibition. Finally. http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2015/oct/28/bernie_sanders_seeks_end_federal


3. MEDICAL MARIJUANA UPDATE
Of course there is a challenge to California's new medical marijuana
law, New York takes another step on the path to medical marijuana, North
Dakota petitioners will have to go back to the drawing board, and more. http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2015/oct/28/medical_marijuana_update

4. THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
A Houston cop's foot fetish gets him in trouble, a Georgia deputy's meth
habit proves problematic, and a New Mexico police chief's greed costs
him his job. http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2015/oct/28/weeks_corrupt_cops_stories

5. CHRONICLE AM: OH LEGALIZERS SPEND BIG BUCKS, CO COPS NOW CARRYING
NALOXONE, MORE (10/23/15)
Ohio pot legalizers are throwing millions of dollars into the effort,
the Federal Reserve throws up another obstacle to marijuana banking,
some Colorado cops will start carrying naloxone, and more. http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2015/oct/23/chronicle_am_oh_legalizers_spend


6. CHRONICLE AM: ME LEGALIZERS UNITE, OR ISSUES RULES FOR MARIJUANA
INDUSTRY, MORE (10/26/15)
Two competing Maine legalization initiative campaigns will now work
together, North Dakota will try again to get a medical marijuana
initiative passed, the GAO has questions about National Guard drug war spending, and more. http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2015/oct/26/chronicle_am_me_legalizers_unite


7. CHRONICLE AM: ONE WEEK TO OH VOTE, DEA RAIDS MENOMINEE HEMP GROW,
IRANIANS FOR LEGALIZATION???, MORE (10/27/15)
Menominee tribal officials are scratching their heads after the DEA cut
down their hemp crop, Ohio votes on legalization in one week, some new
federal sentencing statistics are out, the Iranians may be thinking
about legalizing marijuana and/or opium, and more. http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2015/oct/27/chronicle_am_one_week_oh_vote_de


8. CHRONICLE AM: VA POT ARRESTS UP, ESPECIALLY FOR BLACKS; VT ORGANIZED OPPOSITION EMERGES, MORE (10/28/15)
Initiative proponents in Arkansas and North Dakota have to go back to
the drawing board, Vermont legalization opponents get organized,
Virginia marijuana arrests increase, especially for blacks, and more. http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2015/oct/28/chronicle_am_va_pot_arrests_espe


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================

1. DOUBLE STANDARD? MARIJUANA OR HEMP? DEA INDIAN TRIBE RAID RAISES
QUESTIONS [FEATURE] http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2015/oct/29/double_standard_marijuana_or_hem


This article was produced in collaboration with AlterNet and will appear
at http://www.alternet.org/drugs/ (http://www.alternet.org/drugs/).

Taking advantage of a 2014 Justice Department memo (http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/tribal/pages/attachments/2014/12/11/policystatementregardingmarijuanaissuesinindiancountry2.pdf)
giving Indian tribes a green light to participate in marijuana commerce,
as well as a 2014 congressional vote allowing for industrial hemp pilot programs, Wisconsin's Menominee Tribe earlier this year planted some
30,000 cannabis plants as part of a pilot project with the College of
the Menominee Nation.

Last Friday, the DEA came and cut them all down.

The DEA says the plants were marijuana plants; the tribe says they were
hemp plants. In either case, tribal officials and marijuana reform
advocates don't understand why the grow was raided. Even if it were
marijuana, it appears to be an operation well within Justice Department guidelines. And that's leading to some pointed questions about whether
the feds have one standard for pot-legal states and another for the
tribe-legal jurisdictions.

The memo that allows for marijuana commerce on the reservation includes
eight potential enforcement triggers first formulated in a 2013 Justice Department memo (http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/3052013829132756857467.pdf)
(the Cole memo) advising federal prosecutors to lay off of recreational
and medical marijuana operations in states where they are legal. Those
triggers include diversion to other localities, money going to organized
crime, and violence associated with the trade, among others.

The raid came after the tribe allowed a Bureau of Indian Affairs
employee and local police to inspect the operation and take plant
samples. And that visit came after a meeting between the BIA agent, the
local cops, and an assistant US attorney.

According to the DEA affidavit for a search warrant, the samples tested positive for "marijuana," although there was no measurement of THC
levels in the plants.

Industrial hemp is high in fiber, but low in THC, with levels at 0.3% or
less. Pot produced for the recreational market, by contrast, typically
has THC levels of 15% to 20% and beyond. There is a possibility some of
the plants could exceed the 0.3% limit, but not by much.

The DEA affidavit also attempted to make a case that the hemp grow was violating those Justice Department triggers. The tribe had hired
Colorado cannabis consultant Brian Goldstein to consult on its grow, and Goldstein, along with Tribal Chairwoman Ruth Wapoose, had in fact guided
the feds and the local cops on their tour of the operation.

But Goldstein was "white," the affidavit noted, and several other people present appeared "non-native," and some vehicles had Colorado plates.
This, the affidavit somewhat tortuously argued, violated the memo's
provision about diversion from states where marijuana is legal to those
where it is not. It seems to claim that hiring a cannabis consultant
from a legal state is equivalent to importing pot from that state.

The affidavit also stretched to assert the operation was setting off
other enforcement triggers. The lack of ventilation in a drying room "is
a health and safety concern for the community and the individuals
associated with the operation, which is a violation of the enumerated priorities listed in the Cole memorandum regarding adverse public health concerns of marijuana cultivation," it argued.

But drying hemp stalks in closed barns is standard practice and is used
by farmers around the country, including those who produced legal hemp
crops this year in Colorado and Kentucky.

And security personnel guarding the property had guns, leading the BIA
agent to question "the ability for the security team to have weapons for protection because it would violate the Cole memorandum."

Now, the grow has been destroyed, any decision on criminal prosecution
is in the hands of federal prosecutors, and the tribe and other
observers are wondering just what is going on. After all, the Menominee
aren't the only tribe to take the Justice Department at its word, only
to be raided down the road.

This past summer, the DEA hit two California tribes, the Pit River Tribe
and the Alturas Indian Rancheria, seizing 12,000 plants. The feds
alleged Cole memorandum violations including financing from a foreign entrepreneur and fears the marijuana would be distributed outside the reservations in ways that violated the state's medical marijuana law.
And the US attorney in South Dakota a month earlier refused to agree to
lift an injunction barring Oglala Sioux tribal member Alex White Plume
from growing hemp, which the Oglala Sioux Nation has legalized.

Are the tribes being held to a different standard than states where it
is legal? Has there been a policy shift at Justice? Are individual
federal prosecutors going off the reservation?

Menominee Tribal Chairman Gary Besaw doesn't know, but he isn't happy
about it.

"I am deeply disappointed that the Obama administration has made the
decision to utilize the full force of the DEA to raid our Tribe," he
said in a statement after the raid. "We offered to take any differences
in the interpretation of the farm bill to federal court. Instead, the
Obama administration sent agents to destroy our crop while allowing recreational marijuana in Colorado. I just wish the President would
explain to tribes why we can't grow industrial hemp like the states, and
even more importantly, why we don't deserve an opportunity to make our
argument to a federal judge rather than having our community raided by
the DEA?"

Neither was Eric Steenstra, head of the hemp industry advocacy
organization Vote Hemp (http://www.votehemp.com).

"The DEA action in this case is egregious, excessive and presents an
unjust prejudice against Indian Country and the rights of sovereign
tribal nations," he said. "The Menominee Indian Tribe cultivated their industrial hemp in accordance with Federal Law, per the legislation put
forth in the Farm Bill. This is a step backward, at a time when great
progress has otherwise been made toward legalizing and regulating
industrial hemp cultivation."

In an interview (http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/10/26/dea-raid-on-wisconsin-tribes-cannabis-crop-infuriates-and-confuses-reformers)
with US News and World Report, tribal law expert Lance Morgan, a member
of Nebraska's Winnebago tribe who has worked with tribal governments
pondering marijuana operations, said the Cole memorandum guidelines are
not being applied consistently and warned the Menominee raid would be remembered as a historic betrayal.

"How can you allow people to buy marijuana in a retail environment in
some states and then raid an industrial hemp operation of a tribe? The
only difference is that there is a tribe involved," he said. "This odd
federal policy of encouraging investment and then raiding the new
business sets us back a few decades in federal tribal trust and economic policy."

The raids against tribal pot operations will kill investment in such
ventures, Morgan said.

"The new federal policy of 'sort of' allowing tribes to get into the
marijuana business is especially cruel and unusual because it encourages investment, but after the investment is made the federal government
comes and shuts it down and the investors lose all their money."

Tribal law expert and former head of New York's Seneca Nation Robert
Odawi Porter agreed that there is at least the appearance of a double
standard.

"This certainly suggests a real divergence in policy approach for Indian country," compared to the pot-legal states, which have been allowed to
develop enormous marijuana industries, he said. "It increasingly looks
like the Justice Department guidelines are not being interpreted in the
same way as they were intended."

It seems like the Justice Department has some explaining and clarifying
to do. Can the tribes participate in the new marijuana economy like that states, or not? And does the DEA accept the legal definition and status
of hemp? If not, why?


================ ...


___________________

It's time to correct the mistake:
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Cops say legalize drugs--find out
why:
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Stoners are people too: <http://www.cannabisconsumers.org>
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