Scott Williams, swilliams@wolfrivermedia.com
Menominee tribal leaders said Wednesday the crop raided by federal agents last week contained no marijuana as alleged by the federal government.
Tribal Chairman Gary Besaw issued a statement reasserting that the tribe was growing only industrial hemp, a different type of plant with no psychoactive effects like those derived from smoking marijuana.
“It can’t get you high,” Besaw said. “If someone tried to smoke those plants, the only result would be a cough.”
The chairman’s statement followed allegations by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that the tribe’s operation contained about 30,000 marijuana plants weighing thousands of pounds.
No criminal charges have been announced, although the federal investigation is continuing.
Officials with the drug agency and the U.S. attorney’s office in Milwaukee could not be reached for comment Wednesday about the tribe’s statement.
DEA agents raided the tribe’s agricultural operation Friday along County Road M on the Menominee reservation north of Shawano. Plants described as 4 to 6 feet tall were confiscated from an open field and a nearby barn on a 20-acre compound protected by security guards.
An affidavit released Monday showed that federal agents felt they had evidence of illegal possession, manufacture and distribution of marijuana. The affidavit also showed that the operation allegedly was supervised by an outside consulting firm from Colorado, where marijuana is legal.
Menominee tribal officials this summer asked members of the impoverished tribe if they would support legalizing marijuana on the reservation as a possible new business venture. A referendum on the issue passed, although tribal leaders have not announced their intentions on the issue.
Besaw said in his statement Thursday that an industrial hemp crop was planted to determine if the tribe could generate revenue selling the hemp for its commercial applications, such as clothing, accessories and textiles.
Acknowledging that some of the plants might have contained elevated levels of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, Besaw said tribal officials had committed to destroy any such plants. Discussions with federal officials about the hemp venture had been “ongoing for months,” he said.
He released a copy of a letter addressed in July to the U.S. attorney’s office in Milwaukee, informing federal officials of the hemp crop and assuring them that the tribe had no intention of violating any law.
“Enforcement action against the tribe related to such cultivation would be a tremendous waste of resources,” Besaw wrote. “It would destroy an opportunity for the tribe to explore new ways to raise much needed revenue from the sale of products that are not harmful to anyone.”