Coal was the name of the game for the tribe for a while, but for good business we have to diversify within the reservation,” White Clay told The Gazette on Wednesday.
While individual states have begun legalizing recreational use of marijuana in recent years, the cultivation of cannabis in Indian Country has spurred tension between tribal members and federal authorities that spans decades.
The memo applied to every tribe so long as specific enforcement criteria were met, and regardless of how any state classified cannabis.
Members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma reacted with outrage when their tribal police department announced in 2018 that it would continue to treat cannabis as a Schedule I narcotic, that is, grounds for arrest and jail time for anyone possessing it on the reservation.
That same year, The Gazette reported the Fort Peck Tribal Council officially announced that no tribal member could possess any kind of marijuana.
Lawmakers have spent the past several months trying to iron out what the legal growing and selling of cannabis will look like by January 2022.
The Crow Nation Legislative Branch approved the Crow Cannabis Ordinance on April 16.
The growing and processing of pot on the reservation will similarly fall under the oversight and control of the tribal government.
Thor Hoyte, legal counsel for the Crow Tribe, said both the Chairman and other tribal leaders have been in conversation with the Governor’s Office of Indian Affairs.
“Not only are we paralleling the state in terms of carry and transaction limits.
Although the tribe is paralleling the state, both the chairman and Hoyte said it is operating as a sovereign nation without any need for permission from state authorities.