Original article from the Rapid City Journal 14 December 2005 Url: Court hears hemp appeal By Betsy Taylor, Associated Press Writer ST. LOUIS ‹ Members of a family say they were growing hemp, not marijuana, on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and asked federal appeals judges Monday to return the matter to a lower court to consider the legality of their crop. The White Plume family tried three times to grow an industrial hemp crop on Oglala Sioux reservation land from 2000 to 2002, only to have the plants seized and destroyed by the federal government. The family was later ordered by a judge to halt the plantings permanently. ³Our contention is, weıre not growing a drug, and since weıre not growing a drug, we donıt need to apply to the government for permission,² Bruce Ellison, the lawyer who represents brothers Alex and Percy White Plume, said. A lawyer for the government said the family could have applied to the Drug Enforcement Agency to seek permission to grow the crop. Without that permission, the plantings could not be allowed, assistant U.S. attorney Mark Salter said. ³Until and unless someone changes the definition of marijuana, itıs marijuana,² Salter said. The White Plumes have not been charged with a crime. Ellison said hemp and marijuana are two different varieties of the same plant. The hemp planted by the White Plume family had less than 1 percent of the psychoactive ingredient, tetrahydrocannibol, or THC, court records said. Marijuana usually has THC levels of 5 percent or higher, according to those records. Telling the judges he used hemp soap and shampoo during his morning shower and wrote on paper made from hemp fibers, Ellison argued that oil and fibers from industrial hemp plantings could provide a significant source of income to subsistence farmers on the reservation. Such products, made with imported hemp, are legal in the U.S. A lawyer representing Delaware-based Tierra Madre and the Kentucky-based Madison Hemp and Flax Company said the White Plumesı hemp was part of a project to grow and process hemp on the reservation to create building materials for a structure for a tribal elder. Attorney David Frankel said the government likely would have required barbed wire fences, sensors and a safe to hold the seeds if the White Plumes had sought a permit. ³While there is a process technically, in this case, itıs to no avail,² he said. Ellison said he knew of no instance where the DEA granted a commercial hemp farming permit. And he said by treaty and tribal law, the White Plumes had the right to grow hemp without a DEA permit. Not so, according to Salter, who said the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 set a number of provisions to encourage American Indian farming but does not speak to the growing of hemp. ³Nowhere in there does it say signatory tribes have the right to grow whatever they want on that land,² Salter said. After the hearing, Alex and Percyıs younger sister, Ramona, 44, said the family planted the crop for use in products such as paper. She didnıt believe industrial hemp plantings would open the door to make it easier to plant marijuana, saying any plantıs THC levels could be tested to make sure the plant was hemp rather than marijuana. ³We want to create jobs for our youth and a better future for them,² she said. The judges did not set a date for their ruling, and it can be several weeks to months before their determination is made. On the Net: Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals: http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/index.html