Apparently someone didn’t get – or fully understand – the memo.
Agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs raided a pair of California marijuana grows Wednesday on sovereign tribal lands, according to KOLO TV.
The raids on the Alturas Indian Rancheria and the XL Ranch in the northeastern corner of the state come after the Justice Department’s much-publicized memo released in December spelling out that Native Americans can grow and sell marijuana on tribal lands.
According to the search warrant for the two locations, however, federal agents had reason to believe that the cultivation sites were designed to produce thousands of marijuana plants to be transported off the tribal lands and sold in undisclosed locations. That apparently would violate federal guidelines for Native American tribes that want to grow and sell cannabis.
The warrant also described internal tribal disagreements over whether or not to pursue a cannabis business arrangement, which also led to the raids.
At least 12,000 marijuana plants were seized by agents during the raids, along with more than 100 pounds of processed cannabis. No criminal charges have been issued so far.
