Menominee tribe awaits judge's ruling in hemp lawsuit

(AP) — The leader of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin says it won't plant a new crop of industrial hemp until a federal judge resolves the tribe's lawsuit against the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

Chairwoman Joan Delabreau says the DEA raid last fall that destroyed the tribe's first crop has cost the Menominee millions of dollars and unfairly suggested that "we were growing high-grade marijuana."

Industrial hemp usually has very low levels of THC, the active chemical in marijuana, but it has commercial uses from hemp oil for health and beauty products to hemp fiber for boards and even a hemp-based concrete.

Federal law allows cultivation of hemp as a research project by states and institutions of higher education in states that have adopted laws permitting such projects.

Purdon argued that the Menominee Indian Tribe is a sovereign nation that has met those requirements of the law by approving a tribal ordinance to allow growing industrial hemp for research.