Native American Tribes and the Future of Marijuana

Thanks to a clarifying memo from the Justice Department last October, Native American tribes can now decide for themselves whether to legalize, grow, process, or sell marijuana on their lands. Which means tribes are going to be in the “same situation” as states, says Salvador Mungia, a Tacoma-based lawyer who has represented the ACLU in recent Washington state marijuana cases. Just like a state can decide whether to allow medical marijuana, recreational marijuana, or both, Indian reservations can also choose to open a pot dispensary or grow fields of legalized weed on their lands.

Even though marijuana is still illegal on the federal level, “enforcing marijuana laws [on tribal land] is not a high priority,” says Seattle lawyer Robert McVay, “as long as tribes are regulating their business.”