Cannabis advocates target reservations
There was a time, before white men set foot on the continent, when Native American tribes lived off the land. Now their descendants are hoping to tap a new source of sustenance – by planting giant cannabis farms.
Tex ‘‘Red-Tipped Arrow’’ Hall is launching a company that will advise tribes on growing and selling marijuana products. He believes that, one day, revenues from cannabis could exceed the US$28 billion (NZ$39.2b) that Native American tribes earn each year from casinos.
‘‘Revenues for the US cannabis industry have reached US$11b and projections are the industry will reach US$30b in four years,’’ Hall said.
‘‘Those who enter this market at its infancy have the ability to develop economic engines to impact the next seven generations.’’
Hall, who until recently led the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation – an affiliation of three Native American tribes in North Dakota – has set up Native American Organics, one of several companies hoping to capitalise on more relaxed US attitudes to cannabis.
Most Native American reservations are classed as sovereign nations, with some oversight from the federal government. The US Department of Justice said in December that it would no longer enforce laws that regulate the growing and selling of marijuana on the reservations. That ruling paved the way for Native Americans to try to profit from the ‘‘green rush’’.
Cheryl Shuman, a cannabis advocate who has advised the tribes, said: ‘‘The people who are in at the ground floor now are going to be billionaires. They’re going to be on the covers of magazines. [The industry is going to be bigger] than the NFL, bigger than corn, wheat and soy beans combined.’’
There are fears, however, that cannabis will not be such a panacea.
About half of America’s 566 Native American tribes operate casinos. Casino profits have soared – yet so have poverty rates among Native Americans, which approach 40 per cent in some tribes.
Observers note that tribes have struggled with high rates of alcoholism.
‘‘It’s going to be up to each Indian nation to decide whether this is a tremendous economic opportunity or something to be feared,’’ said Robert Odawi Porter, a former president of the Seneca Nation of New York.
‘‘Alcohol has ravaged Indian communities. Now we’ve got to carefully examine the impact of marijuana . . . One thing is certain: everyone is talking about it.’’