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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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US SD: Raid On Pine Ridge
ccguide Wednesday 06 Sep 2000 Pubdate: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 Source: Lakota Nation Journal (SD) Copyright: 2000 Lakota Nation Journal Contact: FAX: 605-399-1998 Mail: P.O. Box 3080, Rapid City, SD 57709-3080 Website: http://www.lakotanationjournal.com Author: Laura M. Dellinger, Journal Managing Editor Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hemp.htm (hemp) http://www.mapinc.org/find?169 (Sioux hemp) RAID ON PINE RIDGE Oglala Hemp Fields Chopped Down And Taken By Armed Federal Officials MANDERSON - A small army of armed men from several federal and local law enforcement agencies swooped down on the modest and pastoral hemp fields of Alex White Plume's tiospaye in the early hours of a hot August day this past Thursday, shocking and scaring the family members and ripping their carefully cultivated crop from their land. The raiders that descended on the isolated land north of Wounded Knee consisted of at least 25 officers decked out in bulletproof vests, 12 vehicles, two airplanes and a helicopter. The officers carried automatic weapons including machine guns, and their weaponry was augmented by large weed-eaters that were used to chop down the lofty, 8 to 10 foot tall green plants. Stunned by the force of the assault on the tribal land owned by his family, White Plume was still in a state of shock four hours later. "I cannot comprehend why they needed to do this to us," White Plume said quietly with disbelief trembling through his voice. "This crop was going to be the beginning of our future, we followed all of the criteria of the tribal legislation, we were totally open with everyone." OST Public Safety Not Included On Raid White Plume said that he didn't see any members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe Public Safety Department or the local BIA Criminal Investigations officers among the men swarming over his property. "They not only didn't use them, I don't think they even gave them the courtesy of letting them know they were coming," White Plume said. From the words stenciled onto the back of their flak jackets, White Plume determined that the men were from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, the FBI, the U.S. Marshall service and the Shannon County Sheriff. Various officers from Indian police agencies other than Pine Ridge were there, too, but White Plume was not able to determine which tribes they came from. "They acted like they expected us to be dangerous or something," said White Plume. "And I had told McBride (U.S. Attorney for South Dakota Ted McBride) over and over that they would never have anything to fear from us." "We were trying to build our family's future with a useful crop, following all the tribal ordinances on tribal land," he continued. "They don't have the right to do this to us." White Plume Feels "Violated" Although armed to the teeth and clad in body armor, White Plume said the officers' demeanor was generally pleasant. "They were friendly, so friendly it made me sick considering the destruction they were doing. I've never been treated like that before. It made me feel like something's not right, here, and it made me sick." White Plume added in a mournful tone of voice, "They treated me like a relative and then they violated us." Not every officer was pleasant, however. After being awakened and served with the search warrant White Plume went down to the hemp field and tried to get in amongst the plants that carried so much of his family's hope for the future and of which he had been so fond. "When I got within a couple yards of the field a U.S. Marshall pointed a machine gun at me and told me to halt," White Plume said. "He made it very clear he was willing to shoot if I didn't stop." Some of White Plume's nieces and nephews who live in a mobile home near the field stood in shock, wrapped in blankets, and watched the destruction. "One of my niece's was crying," he said. "She didn't want to see her uncle taken to jail or shot." White Plume was not arrested although he had expected to be. He asked the officers why they weren't taking him in with his plants. "They said they didn't want to get into anything political." That may not be something the federal government can avoid, however. Plants Were Tested As Low-THC The crop the family had seeded their land with last April and tended so carefully was industrial hemp, a cousin to the more infamous marijuana but without more than a trace of marijuana's psychotropic component, THC. Officers on the scene of the raid even admitted to White Plume that his plants were known by them not to be marijuana. "They told me they had gotten some leaves from my crop earlier and tested it," he said. "They told me it tested out at less than one percent THC content." That left White Plume even more puzzled about the need for the assault and seizure. "I asked them why they would take my plants if they knew they weren't really drugs," White Plume said. "They told me it was to deter other Lakota from doing what I was doing, and because they wouldn't differentiate between marijuana and hemp." The DEA has a policy of refusing to acknowledge or operate as if there is a difference between the two plant cousins. Very probably, White Plume says, because to the eye hemp is nearly indistinguishable from marijuana and enforcement of anti-marijuana laws would be less simple if they had to test for THC content before seizing cultivated plants. But industrial hemp is a legally cultivated cash crop in Canada and other countries where it is recognized for its usefulness as raw material for paper, food, clothing, rope and building materials, among thousands of other things. DEA Has Authority To Define 'Marijuana' U.S. Attorney McBride, in a phone conversation that day, refused to call the plants anything but marijuana. "Congress has given the DEA the authority to define marijuana and there are court cases that uphold their authority to consider hemp as marijuana without relationship to the THC content." "The 1st Circuit Court ruled in a case from either Vermont or New Hampshire this year," he continued. "They upheld DEA's authority against a claim similar to the one being made by the Pine Ridge people about low THC content." McBride would not say with what federal agency the request for the search warrant originated, saying that it was all one and the same. "We are all on one page on this, the DEA, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney." A second plot of hemp is in the ground on the property of former two-term tribal president Joe American Horse Sr. of the Slim Buttes Land Use Association. Although McBride said a second plot just south of Oglala in the Slim Buttes area was also raided, American Horse Sr. said his land had not been raided. "Our plants weren't planted until April 29th and aren't even four feet tall," he said. "They aren't ready for harvest the way Alex's were and McBride had always said that if we prepared to harvest it he would do something." American Horse Sr. was indignant about the show of force displayed during the raid on the White Plume property and the federal refusal to honor tribal sovereignty. "There was no need to have that many officers with flak jackets on," he growled. "We don't believe in drugs and we would never promote drugs. Those people were farming a crop, just like we are farming a crop. These plants are not drugs." He said he did not expect to sleep too soundly for the next couple of weeks, knowing what had taken place that morning. "We have our plot fenced and marked with a sign that says 'OST Dept. of Agriculture Experimental Farm.' But that may not make much difference to them, either." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake
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