Tim Ryan, tryan@wolfrivermedia.com
Leader Photo by Scott Williams A tent sits on the site of Friday’s federal raid on land where the Menominee tribe says it was cultivating hemp, a member of the same plant family as marijuana.
Leader Photo by Scott Williams A small sign posted at the site of Friday’s raid identifies the property as “a permitted and experimental industrial hemp field” and refers visitors to the Menominee tribal chairman for information.
A federal raid Friday that bulldozed industrial hemp on the Menominee Reservation will likely lead to a lawsuit in federal court, according to tribal officials.
“Today, Federal Agents improperly and unnecessarily entered the sovereign lands of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and destroyed the Tribe’s industrial hemp crop,” Tribal Chairman Gary Besaw said in a statement.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, assisted by the FBI, destroyed the hemp near County Road M west of Suring, bulldozing plants and placing them into dump trucks.
The DEA sent out a news release late Friday saying that approximately 30,000 marijuana plants weighing over several thousand pounds were seized in the operation after a search warrant was issued by a U.S. District Court judge in Green Bay.
The news release suggested that other parties might have taken advantage of laws allowing the tribe to grow industrial hemp.
“The search warrant authorized the search of a dwelling, outbuilding and land totaling approximately 20 acres. The investigation into the marijuana fields revealed that individuals other than Menominee Tribe Members planted and were tending to the marijuana plants located on tribal land,” the news release stated.
It was not clear whether tribal officials were aware of the DEA’s marijuana allegations. Besaw’s statement was issued earlier in the day and referred only to the tribe’s hemp crop.
“In light of the actions by the Department of Justice today, the Tribe now has no choice but to move forward with litigation to settle the question of its ability to grow industrial hemp under the 2014 Farm Bill,” Besaw said.
In May, the tribe legalized the growing of industrial hemp that did not have mind-altering effects. Besaw said the tribe believes growing the plants is legal, allowed by the federal farm bill.
Notice of the tribe’s action was reported to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he said.
“The Tribe’s industrial hemp crop was always intended to be a legal crop as allowed by the 2014 Farm Bill,” Besaw said.
Hemp is a type of cannabis plant related to marijuana, and it has been widely used in recent years in the legal manufacture of a variety of products, such as paper, clothing and textiles.
The site of the raid appeared abandoned late Friday, although a posted sign called it “a permitted and experimental industrial hemp field.” The sign also referred visitors to the tribal chairman for more information.
“I am deeply disappointed that the Obama administration has made the decision to utilize the full force of the DEA to raid our Tribe,” Besaw said in his statement. “We were attempting to grow industrial hemp for research purposes in accordance with the farm bill.”
Besaw said there had been differences with federal officials over interpretations of the farm bill, but efforts were underway to resolve those questions, including allowing federal officials to test samples of the crop and destroy strains of hemp that federal officials believed were illegal.
“These offers by the Tribe were rejected in favor of the aggressive unilateral action we saw today,” Besaw said.
“What makes the actions taken today even more difficult to understand is that the federal government is very aware of the great unmet needs of Menominee,” Besaw said. “Menominee County ranks at the bottom of the state in poverty and health statistics. The Tribe is trying to meet these needs by researching the potential economic opportunities of industrial hemp just as Congress intended when passing the Farm Bill.”
The raid Friday comes two months after Menominee leaders asked tribal members if they would support legalizing marijuana so that it could be grown on the reservation as a possible new source of revenue for the impoverished tribe. A referendum on the issue passed with strong support in August, although tribal leaders have not publicly announced whether they will pursue the issue further.