The Wasco, the Walla Walla, and the Pauite tribes of Oregon, whose reservations are on the slope of Mt. Hood near Warm Springs are exploring exercising their sovereignty through the cultivation and sale of marijuana.
These tribes make up the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.
The 1,000 square mile reservation is the epicenter for one of the most economically depressed areas of the state, with an unemployment rate of about 20 percent. About a third of its residents are belong the federal poverty line.
The Confederated tribes want to change that statistic by taking advantage of the fact that Oregon voters in 2014 approved of the use of recreational pot. That doesn’t make pot growing any less a federal crime, but the Department of Justice has communicated to tribes that it won’t use its big stick against them if they decide to become growers.
Several months the tribe broke ground on a 36,000 square foot greenhouse and hopes to begin marketing weed in 2017. The idea is very popular with the tribe, where in a referendum 1,252 voted for it and 198 voted against growing pot.
The Confederated Tribes also has a casino, hotel and lodge. It also engages in the timber industry, which isn’t very successful because of the decline of the industry. It doesn’t plan to put all of its eggs in either the gaming or marijuana basket. It is exploring other economic, such as the development of drones by offering tribal land as a testing ground. It is also working to found its own telecom company.
