Minnesota’s legal cannabis rollout has given Native American tribes a head start, creating what some tribal members call a “model” approach, though the concept is not without challenges.
“We sort of look at Minnesota as like the ideal model of what we’d like to see happen,” said Rob Pero, founder of Canndigenous and the Indigenous Cannabis Industry Association (ICIA). “Tribes have every right to advance quicker than the state because they have civil regulatory authority.”
While Minnesota works through its adult-use cannabis rollout, several tribal nations are quickly establishing retail operations both on and off reservation lands. White Earth, Red Lake and Prairie Island are among those making significant moves in the market, tribal representatives noted.
“Tribes are starting to put locations across the state of Minnesota rather quickly,” Pero said, adding that tribes are implementing “longer term, 5- to 10-year business plans” rather than immediately distributing cannabis revenues to tribal members.
That rapid deployment, however, has catalyzed internal discussions within tribal communities about how cannabis profits should be allocated and who should benefit from the new enterprises.
“Community members, when they hear tribes are taking the enterprise or creating an enterprise to move forward as a wealth building engine, they’re expecting that wealth to come back in some cases probably rather quickly,” Pero said. “The disconnect between the community members and what they think the intent of revenue is supposed to go towards for long term sustainable growth of their communities” can create tensions.
A recent case involving Todd Thompson, a member of White Earth Band in Northern Minnesota, has highlighted those internal divisions. Thompson, who operated his own cannabis business, was raided this month by Mahnomen County law enforcement. To make matters worse, ICIA Executive Director Mary Jane Oatman alleged that “tribal law enforcement looked the other way while this raid took place.”
During the raid, Thompson told The Guardian, authorities “took my sacred items, my sage bowl, tipped it upside down on my bed, they took my feather and put it on the floor,” showing the cultural insensitivity that can accompany raids on dispensaries.
“(Thompson) finds himself now in a situation where his business is competing against tribal corporations, business resources, law; so, it’s a frustrating situation all the way around,” Oatman said. She advocates for tribes to “embrace opportunities for their tribal citizens to also be able to get a license and to participate.”
Oatman, whose grandparents went to federal prison for growing marijuana on the Nez Perce Reservation in Idaho when she was in elementary school, brings personal experience to her advocacy. As founder of the Indigenous Cannabis Coalition and Tribal Hemp and Cannabis magazine, she tracks tribal cannabis operations nationwide.
“I built out a whole database for it, like an entire tribal nation and operational database for who’s who and where they’re doing it. All of that with their codes, contacts, ordinances, because it needed to be done and nobody else was doing it,” Oatman said.
Oatman warned that the threat of outsiders looking to exploit tribal communities for business opportunities of all stripes – including cannabis – is very real, and something tribes must ward against.
“In my different communities that I work within, it’s not just cannabis, it’s solar, it’s geothermal – whatever is the fast get rich quick scheme or new emerging technology or industry, there is always going to be a shark coming into a tribal community to take advantage of them, 100% of the time,” she said.
Many tribes are hiring outside cannabis experts to launch their businesses as well.
“We’re getting a bunch of former CEOs or general managers from MSOs or operations in other legal states that are coming into new tribal markets and really moving the needle,” said Pero, who is a member of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians.
Tribes are taking different approaches to cannabis, Pero said. Some run businesses as tribal government enterprises, while others “on the East Coast are handing out licenses to tribal entrepreneurs and empowering their citizens to go create businesses.”
Pero believes tribal governments should keep some distance from day-to-day cannabis operations.
“The ideal situation is tribes compartmentalize. They create a commission, they create a business structure and then hire and provide that degree of separation so that business is reported to the cannabis commission board, which reports to the tribal government,” he said.
The ICIA plans to host a one-day public forum in Minnesota in May following the conclusion of the state’s legislative session. According to Oatman, this “post legislative tribal cannabis debriefing” will include tribal CEOs and allow for difficult questions to be addressed openly.
At the end of the day, cannabis also represents more than just a business opportunity for Native American communities. Pero explained that growing and selling cannabis gives tribes enterprises they can fully control, unlike many other economic development projects.
“Tribes that have established cannabis operations or any other alternative revenue generating industries that are outside of federal funding and gaming are confident, they’re feeling good about that,” Pero said, noting such independence is especially valuable given fluctuating federal policies.
For now, with Minnesota state license lotteries not expected until May or June, tribal operations are filling a market void, meaning they’re likely to turn a solid profit, at least in the short term before the market fills up.
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