Jeremy Briggs interviews Alex White Plume on Hemphasis.net, the definitive source for consumer information about hemp, the botanical cousin of marijuana.
Alex White Plume is a Lakota Indian living on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which comprises all of Shannon County, South Dakota. Shannon County is the poorest county in the entire USA, with 85% unemployment. In 2000, Alex became the only farmer to plant, cultivate, produce, sell and deliver a hemp crop within the borders of the USA since 1968.
Hemp ("Wahupta Ska Pejuta"--sweet white root medicine) is the strongest natural fiber on earth and can be used for a wide variety of products. Hemp has been cultivated and used in the United States since the country's founding, and well beforehand.
In 1998, the Tribal Government for the Pine Ridge Reservation legally differentiated between industrial hemp and marijuana, specifically allowing hemp crops. US laws do not make a distinction. Hemp is a perfect crop for the near-desert climate of Pine Ridge. It requires moderate moisture and no crop chemicals, while providing great potential for the nutritional and economic gains the area desperately needs. (The seeds contain one of the highest sources of protein in nature.) THC, the psychoactive chemical found in marijuana that produces a mild euphoric feeling can be completely separated from hemp. Alex states, “You can make clothing, you can make lipstick, you can make perfume, you can make shampoo. Anything that’s made out of plastic can be replaced with the products from hemp. You cannot get high from smoking industrial hemp.”
In 2000, the DEA, with helicopters and machine guns, confiscated the crop (which was legal in the sovereign nation in which it was grown, and which was later found to contain only minute traces of THC), costing US taxpayers more than $200,000. In 2001, the DEA came only with side arms and weed eaters, this time simply destroying the crop. In 2002, Alex and his family again planted fields of industrial hemp, but were unable to complete their contract by delivering the crop to the Madison Hemp and Flax Co., because U.S. District Judge Battey (in Rapid City, South Dakota), issued a civil injunction stating that if Alex so much as touched his hemp, he would be held in contempt of court and jailed for up to six months without a trial or a jury. As a result, the hemp was cut and piled by people unknown; the pile lying in silent testimony between Alex and the Madison Hemp & Flax buyer Craig Lee, both barred from touching it by the government. Delivery was made, but the deliveree could not accept the product.
Alex's challenge to the legality of the injunction has been continually pushed back, preventing justice. Alex is struggling with the US court system for his right to farm his native land. His struggle is more about sovereignty than it is about farming, or possession of controlled substances.
According to Alex, Canadian hemp farmers yield 900-1200 lb/acre. On Pine Ridge Reservation the hopes are for 700 lb/acre. Alex would like to grow hemp on 160 acres, which could earn his family and tribe the money to make a decent living, independent of the United States' handouts. Many buyers have already committed. He estimates that it will take 35 pounds of seeds per acre. Alex needs seed. If Alex were left in peace to grow hemp, then many growth industries could be set up to help alleviate Pine Ridge's poverty, but the DEA, which has assumed the authority to set farm policy not only for the United States, but for sovereign nations all over the world, continues to brutally enforce insane doctrine.
Watch the clip "Hemp For Victory" to learn more about this versatile crop. Read about the benefits of industrial hemp at hemphasis.net
Alex White Plume's Update, Jun, 2007
"The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the local district court's decision will stand, but they also said that there is a hemp farm and there is a marijuana farm, and so they distinguished between the two species of plants. But only Congress can change the law. I wanted to go to the Supreme Court, which is our next step, but I don't have the $300,000 it'll take to go there. Besides that, the Supreme Court has always been an enemy to the Lakota. They always diminish our sovereignty, based on the fact of the "doctrine of discovery," that's what they use, because there is no criminal case law to prosecute indigenous people in this country.
Senator Paul from Texas has introduced a bill in Congress. It's in committee and they are waiting for it to be called down for a vote, so I'm supporting them [even though] they left out all the indigenous people, all the nations here in the United States and so we have to create our own bill to go up there. I'm hoping they will pass this bill for the Americans and that mine will just complement theirs, but we have to have this special sovereignty language in ours so that we continue to protect our sovereignty. So we're left out of the picture, after all these years of struggling. I know Senator Paul probably had good intentions in his mind, however I wish somebody would have communicated to me that they were doing this, and then, we'd have been able to help him out and participate in some fashion.
Other than that, hemp has been just idle. It's been standing still. I've been going out to Indian country, advocating for industrial hemp, educating all our people. I have to overcome all the obstacles — all the marijuana jokes — and then people get down to serious business and they look at it from a fresh perspective. We're getting to that point where we're going to start advocating again.
The Navajo Nation and a number of different Indian reservations have passed legislation to grow industrial hemp, but they are all waiting for me to get it legalized, so I have to do a lot of work. We need to get some lawyers together to craft a bill. Recently, I've realized that federal Indian law has evolved to become a kind of nightmare. Lawyers who specialize in federal Indian law often say, "Oh, I can do this. No, I can't do this. Indians can only do this and Indians cannot do this." So they limit themselves. I want to get some lawyers who do not specialize in Indian law. I want a lawyer who can fight for sovereignty that's not afraid to take this to task. But it's really scary because every lawyer that gets the degree and wants to pass the bar has to swear an oath, "I swear to defend the Constitution of the United States," and so thereby, my issue as an indigenous person is with the United States, so no lawyer will ever take this to its limits. We may have to go to an international lawyer, somebody who is out of this country that will take this [fight] for its pure meaning of what we want because we are another nation. We are a separate, distinct nation in this country. And although we exist in this greater society, I'd like to make an example.
All the other indigenous nations in the world can go to the World Bank to make a loan, to start some form of economic development. However in the United States, we cannot participate in that because we're colonized by a wealthy state, the United States. So even amongst indigenous peoples, we have to overcome all these obstacles so we can all work cooperatively.
I'm in favor of all forms of economic development as long as it doesn't have that Western mentality of exploiting the earth, exploiting the air and exploiting the water. To them, all they want to do is make a dollar. They don't care how much damage they do. I'm not for that. I want economic development to save Mother Earth. She is all we have and right now she is crying out for help. We all have to come to terms with that and we all have to join hands and work cooperatively.
I'm going to fight for Lakota hemp until I can make some money to support my clan for however long it takes. It's taken a lot out of us and economically we've just been devastated, but we believe in it, so we're not going to give up on it."
TAKE ACTION
Here are 10 things you can do to advance Alex White Plume's cause and contribute to the development and prosperity of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Lakota Sioux Nation.
Write your Representative about industrial hemp and the HR Bill 1009, which legalizes hemp cultivation in the United States.
Read some interesting historical facts about hemp, including why big business sees it as a threat.
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