Violence in Akwesasne as protestors clash with Mohawk police over dispensary raid

Police car burns on the Akwesasne Mohawk territory, Feb. 22, 2019.

by Alan S. Hale, Standard Freeholder, February 23, 2019

AWKESASNE — The Mohawk Council of Akwesasne (MCA) is pleading for calm after a protest in front of the Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service headquarters became violent on Friday night, resulting in a police SUV to be stolen by protesters and burned on an international ice bridge that connects different portions of the community.

RCMP execute search warrants at Chilliwack cannabis shops on First Nations land

A Chilliwack RCMP officer outside the Indigenous Bloom Medical Cannabis Dispensary on the Kwaw-Kwaw-Apilt First Nation on July 12 as a search warrant is executed. (Paul Henderson/ The Progress)

Officers on scene at The Kure on Skwah and Indigenous Bloom on Kwaw-Kwaw-Apilt Thursday

by Paul Henderson, Chilliwack Progress, July 12, 2018

The proprietors of two new cannabis retail shops on two different local First Nations reserves in Chilliwack learned this week that, yes, marijuana is still illegal.

At around 10 a.m. on July 12, Mounties blocked the entrance to the parking lots at The Kure Cannabis Dispensary on the Skwah First Nation just off Wolfe Road, and at the newer Indigenous Bloom Medical Cannabis Dispensary on the Kwaw-Kwaw-Apilt First Nation on Ashwell Drive.

First Nations entrepreneurs are asserting sovereignty and seizing the new cannabis economy

An officer from the Six Nations police aims an assault rifle during a Nov. 16, 2017, raid of the Mohawk Medicine herbal dispensary in Six Nations. (Submitted by Seth LeFort)

Six Nations cannabis dispensary owner defiant after raid: ‘Stay out of our affairs’

By Jorge Barrera, CBC News, Jan 10, 2018

Jeff Hawk said he was sitting in the lounge area of his dispensary chatting with friends early on Tuesday evening when several assault-rifle wielding Six Nations police officers burst in, ordering everyone to get on the ground.

RCMP, Tobique in showdown over medicinal marijuana

by Tom Fennario, APTN National News, October 12, 2017

Maliseet in New Brunswick and the RCMP are at odds over whether the community of Tobique has the lawful ability to sell medicinal marijuana.

The issue came to a head on Oct. 5 when officers raided the offices of Tribal ReLeaf, a medicinal cannabis dispensary on Tobique First Nation.

Tobique marijuana dispensary raid came close to ‘full-out conflict,’ chief says

RCMP officers during the October 5, 2017 raid on Tobique First Nation.

Ross Perley says First Nation band sees RCMP raid on Tribal ReLeaf as an ‘attack’ on sovereignty

By Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon, CBC News, October 6, 2017

The chief of Tobique First Nation says the RCMP raid on the community’s new marijuana dispensary Thursday prompted a blockade that could have turned into a “full-out conflict.”

Ross Perley says Tribal ReLeaf, which opened in July, is 51 per cent-owned by the band and has the full support of band council as a “pain management centre.”

Menominee Tribe’s Hemp Crop Destroyed by DEA Agents

File photo of DEA agents conducting raid.

By Christie Green, CBS News, Oct 24, 2015

Federal Agents destroyed Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin’s industrial hemp crop on Friday, October 24, according to a statement by the Tribe.

In May 2015, tribe had legalized the growing of low THC non-psychotropic industrial hemp by Tribal licenses on its land.

In 2014 Congress had passed a Farm Bill which recognized a distinction between marijuana and industrial hemp that created an exemption to the Controlled Substance Act to allow for growth, cultivation and the study of industrial hemp in certain circumstances.