Ho-Chunk Nation decriminalizes cannabis [Video]

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – The Ho-Chunk Nation decriminalized cannabis on tribal lands, despite it being illegal in Wisconsin and federally.

“We’re securing our rights as a sovereign nation,” Kristin White Eagle, a legislator for the Ho-Chunk Nation said.

White Eagle clarified the tribe is decriminalizing, not legalizing cannabis on their land. Although they see future widespread medicinal and economic opportunities in the cannabis industry, she said.

“This is a plant that Indigenous peoples across the earth have always been aware of its good properties and benefits,” White Eagle said. Now, “part of the needs and wants that our people wanted was to see us move into the cannabis industry.”

Richard Monette, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison said the state still holds criminal jurisdiction over tribal members and reservations.

“I’m concerned of the obvious, I think, legal battle that this will invite,” Monette said.

The Ho-Chunk’s …