INDIAN TOWNSHIP, Maine — The Passamaquoddy Tribe here will work with a Colorado medical marijuana consulting firm to build a cultivation facility on tribal land in Washington County.
Passamaquoddy officials say the facility will be used for industrial hemp production, but would not rule out a shift to medicinal and recreational marijuana cultivation as state and federal cannabis laws continue to change.
The Passamaquoddies have tried, in vain, to bring more economic opportunity and good-paying jobs to tribal members, living Down East in Maine's poorest county.
Efforts to build a casino on tribal lands have been consistently blocked at the ballot box and in the Legislature. Plans to build a $120 million wind farm have not panned out.
So now, Passamaquoddy Chief Billy Nicholas says the tribe is joining others across the nation who see a potential gold mine in marijuana and hemp cultivation.
"We know we're in the driver's seat to get this done," he says. "We're not here to break any laws. We're here to provide a better economic base to the tribe."
The anchor of this newly envisioned economic base would be a massive marijuana cultivation facility housed inside an existing 35,000-square-foot building on tribal land in the town of Princeton.
About a month ago, Nicholas says he reached out to Gov. Paul LePage's office to discuss the project. But the administration, Nicholas says, wasn't interested in getting behind a marijuana cultivation project. So the tribe began looking for other partners.
"Whether it's recreational, medicinal or a hemp project, we are more than willing to help the tribe facilitate that project," says Eric Hagin, CEO of Monarch America, which now has a letter of intent with the tribe to develop the cultivation plant Down East.
Monarch, a medical marijuana consulting firm based in Denver, is already working on a similar project with the Flandreau Santee Sioux in South Dakota and is talking to other tribes across the country.
But moving ahead with marijuana cultivation on tribal lands requires delicate consultation on tribal sovereignty and the nation's shifting laws covering marijuana cultivation and use.
"What we suggest and what we help tribes do is write their ordinances, that get passed into laws, and making sure that they follow the Cole Memorandum," Hagin says.
The Cole Memorandum, named after Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole and issued in 2013, lays out federal enforcement guidelines in states that make marijuana use legal. An addendum, issued last fall by the Justice Department, says that Indian tribes, as sovereign nations, can legalize and regulate recreational or medicinal marijuana as long as they follow the same federal rules that states do.
In addition to the Cole Memorandum, the Passamaquoddies, who are interested in starting out with hemp cultivation, must coordinate with state officials.
Earlier this year, the Legislature passed a hemp law requiring businesses to get a license from the Maine Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Conservation. The law also requires that industrial hemp cultivators be affiliated with a university.
"We just want to be sure that, you know, if there's anything we need to cover relating to the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Cole Memorandum, and how that affects us, or the current state laws, that everybody is aware of what we're doing," Nicholas says.
So he says the tribe's legal team will be reaching out and having conversations with state officials and the U.S. Attorney's Office, where Don Clark is the spokesman.
"The U.S. Attorney is generally aware, through media reports, of the marijuana facility being proposed for Indian Township," he says, "but has not been contacted by either of the parties involved."
Nicholas says the tribe hopes to finalize its contract with Monarch America in the coming weeks.
With the possibility of a legalization referendum on the Maine ballot next year, Nicholas says the tribe will also be considering a move into medicinal and recreational marijuana cultivation in the future.