Maine tribal nations dissolve ties to legislature, study legal cannabis

The Marijuana Policy Project will petition Maine residents if the question of legalization should be on the ballot in 2016.

Red states do diddly squat for tribal nations often competing for resources instead of creating lasting partnerships.

The Penobscot Indian Nation and the Passamaquoddy Tribe took history into their hands last week when they permanently withdrew their representatives from the Maine legislature, ending almost two centuries of participation in the state’s political process. The rift has been building since the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act – MICSA – passed in 1980. In the end the tribal nations gave up their claim to around two-thirds of the state –more than 12 million acres – and settled for several hundreds of thousands of acres and around $81 million. The tribal-state relationship became so frayed that the Penobscot Indian Nation severed all ties with the state in 2008, after the governor worked during the last hours of the legislative session to block bills that would have benefited tribal nations and had been passed by both chambers of the legislature. [Indian Country Today]

While the Palestinian homeland looks like holes in the slice of Swiss cheese analogous to the illegal Israeli state, progress toward resolutions of Native trust disputes would have far more political traction after tribes secede from the States in which they reside and then be ratified to form one State, the 51st, sans contiguous borders with two Senators and two House members as there are an estimated 2.5 million indigenous.

The Passamaquoddy at Pleasant Point, the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians and the Aroostook Band of Micmacs say they are studying and discussing legalization of cannabis.