SCOUTING YESTERDAY | Pine Ridge farmer challenges U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency
This week in South Dakota history: July 31 – Aug. 6
Federal agents raided the land of Manderson farmer and future Oglala Sioux Tribal president Alex White Plume, seizing 22 acres of cultivated hemp and kicking off more than a decade of dispute over tribal sovereignty.
Hemp was planted again the next spring, and 25 years ago this week, authorities seized the crop for the second time, according to the August 4, 2001, edition of the Argus Leader.
Hemp and its cousin marijuana share the same leaf, but not the same amount of the psychoactive substance THC. The industrial version of the plant, hemp is instead grown for its use in the production of fabric, food, paper, biofuel and more, according to the Rapid City Journal.
