The Alex White Plume Story: Hemp at Pine Ridge

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Alex has set up his own lumber mill so that he can be less dependent on the world beyond his tiyospaye.

“I cut every board in here to make this little addition. And we made a hemp house; we cut all the lumber to build that. We use trees from the side of the hills. My buffalo corrals are made out of boards I cut. So we’re really using our own land and our own resources. On our land we got all the cedar posts for our buffalo fence.”
 In keeping with his desire to be as self-sufficient as he can be, Alex has planted a field of industrial hemp so that he can make, among thousands of other things, building products.

 
Stored in the hemp house are some bats of un-faced hemp insulation obtained from Germany.

If the DEA doesn’t destroy his crop again this year, Alex will be able to manufacture his own hemp insulation. 

“The DEA came and they stole our hemp. But, you know, we don’t care because we can plant again and just re-grow it. We just want to be left alone.”
"This is the white world and this is the Lakota world and we’re trying to exist here --in the middle-- but we have to step over on this [the white] side. And so how do I do that and cause the least amount of conflict?”

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