According to Alex White Plume, the celebration June 25-26 will be for “all the people who stayed with me when my morale wasn’t so great.” Photo by Talli Nauman
OST recognizes legality of growing hemp
Tiospaye celebrates tribal hemp action
By Talli Nauman
Native Sun News
Health & Environment Editor
www.nsweekly.com MANDERSON –– Vic Camp stands barefoot on the cracked bare ground that was a hemp field until that fateful hour more than a decade ago when federal agents swooped in on a crop ready to harvest and wiped it out. “It was a sad day,” he said. “I thought we were gonna be able to grow this wonderful plant. We had different businesses we were planning on, starting with oil, making our own paper, and houses from hempcrete that are cool in the summer and warm in the winter.” He touted the strength, durability and versatility of the plant that was harvested across the United States to use for rope in the World War II effort but later outlawed for domestic producers due to its close resemblance to marijuana. “It’s been almost 20 years now since the first raiders,” Camp recalls. “By now we wanted to have the businesses going,” he said. Noting the reservation’s 75-percent unemployment, he added that poverty here could be relieved with the jobs from growing and processing the product. “It was just like taking our future from us,” he said. His extended family had ventured into the hemp field on the strength of Tribal Ordinance 98-27, legalizing industrial hemp in the Tribal Penal Code in 1998.
Read the rest of the story on the all new Native Sun News website: OST recognizes legality of growing hemp (Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman@gmail.com) Copyright permission Native Sun News
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