Source: Indian Country Today Media Network :
In 1794, President George Washington said: “Make the most you can of the Indian hemp seed and sow it everywhere!”
Well, we would if we could! While more than 30 countries have been growing hemp and profiting richly from the sale of hemp products for many years, its commercial cultivation has been banned in the United States since 1957.
But the winds are shifting. With the passage of the Farm Bill in 2014, industrial hemp now can be grown legally by higher education institutions and state departments of agriculture for research and pilot programs. However, it remains to be seen whether the same rules will apply to tribal nations.
Alex White Plume is banking on that outcome. Recently, the federal government lifted a 12-year injunction, the only one of its kind, on the Oglala Lakota Native related to the cultivation of industrial hemp on his Pine Ridge Reservation property dating back to 2000, which the Feds said violated the Controlled Substances Act. The ruling does not give White Plume permission to grow industrial hemp yet, and he faces more legal hurdles. But it is a step in the right direction.
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White Plume, considered the first modern-day Native American hemp farmer in the U.S., believes tribes can make hefty profits growing industrial hemp−a hardy plant from the Cannabis family, not to be confused with marijuana, as it contains less than 1 percent of the psychoactive chemical THC, so it can’t get you high. He says hemp can fetch copy97/square acre, compared to $38/square acre for alfalfa, and copy8 a square acre for barley.
Every part of the hemp plant has great market value‒the seeds, stalks, leaves and hurd (the woody core of the stalk). Traditionally, Natives used hemp to make medicinal salve, fishing nets and clothing. “Our women had some of the nicest threads,” says White Plume.
Today, this versatile crop is being used to make many commercial products in the U.S. “When I started 15 years ago, there were only about 638 hemp-related businesses. Mostly hippie stores.” That number has jumped to more than 15,000, says White Plume, who went to Europe at one time to study the hemp industry from the ground up. “I want to prove that hemp is a viable product and we can all make money from it.”