HEMP CONTROVERSY GROWING ON PINE RIDGE INDIAN RESERVATION

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - Some members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe are moving
forward with plans to cultivate hemp, even if they have to take the Drug
Enforcement Administration to federal court.

Hemp has grown wild for decades on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation,
despite the DEA's repeated attempts - spraying and dousing with chemicals,
setting fields on fire - to wipe it out. Growing hemp, a cousin to
marijuana, is illegal.

The Land-Use Association, a group of tribal members in the small
reservation town of Slim Buttes, wants to turn the tall hemp stalks into
paper, mats, construction blocks for housing and other products. The group
says the moneymaking venture would create jobs and homes in the
impoverished area.

Milo Yellow Hair, the tribe's vice president, said the reservation has
struggled with the issue for at least two years and finally decided to
proceed with the hemp project after other economic-development initiatives
failed.

"Now we are left to tackle the so-called gray area initiatives," he said.
"When they hear the word hemp, they think marijuana. Then they think drug
use, and then it becomes a police state. But that's not what we want to do."

Hemp and marijuana are both varieties of the cannabis sativa plant, but
hemp typically contains less than 1 percent of the narcotic chemical THC.
Marijuana plants contain 10 percent to 20 percent THC, which makes pot
smokers high.

Two weeks ago, the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council changed a tribal law to
allow for making products out of hemp. The revised code says a plant with
less than 1 percent of THC is considered industrial hemp and is legal.

But according to federal law, growing hemp - no matter how low its THC
content - is the same as growing marijuana. And the same criminal penalties
apply to people growing either plant.

Anyone who wants to grow hemp plants legally for industrial use must get
permission from the DEA, said Karen Schreier, U.S. attorney for South Dakota.

"The same rules apply on and off the reservation," she said.

Yellow Hair said the tribe will apply for a DEA certificate of registration
to grow the hemp, but the process is not easy.

Schreier said she does not think the DEA has ever approved an application
to grow hemp plants. Larry Johnson, resident agent-in-charge of the DEA
office in Sioux Falls, said the tribe's chances are not good.

"I seriously doubt that they will be able to meet the requirements," he said.

Tom Cook, who is in charge of the Land-Use Association's hemp project, said
asking the DEA for permission would be a "useless endeavor." For now, the
tribal group plans to proceed without breaking the law.

He said members can do that by touching only the hemp stalks, which do not
contain THC, and by avoiding the leaves and seeds, which do contain the
chemical. The stalks are the parts needed to make paper and other products.

Although federal law considers that action illegal, the land-use group is
following the recently revised tribal law, Cook said. The only way to
resolve the dispute between the federal and tribal laws is going to court,
he said.

"At some point the tribe will be before a federal judge filing an
injunction against the DEA," he said. "The question is whether the tribe
has sovereignty over its own land."

Copyright 1998 Associated Press

Checked-by: Richard Lake