Source: startribune.com
FARGO, N.D. — The former U.S. attorney in North Dakota decided to take on his former employer by filing a motion Thursday to lift an 11-year-old federal injunction that prevents a man from growing industrial hemp on a South Dakota reservation.
Timothy Purdon, who now works for a Minneapolis-based law firm, contacted the U.S. attorney's office in South Dakota several months ago in an effort to allow Oglala Sioux Nation member Alex White Plume to produce hemp, as the tribe legalized the crop in 1998 and last year's federal farm bill allowed hemp to be grown through state agriculture departments and college research stations.
Federal prosecutors rejected his proposal, so Purdon filed his first motion in federal court since he left the DOJ in March.
"As a former U.S. attorney, I love the people at the Department of Justice," said Purdon, the top federal prosecutor in North Dakota for almost five years. "But they are just wrong on the tribal sovereignty issue here.
"There is no reason that an industrial hemp farmer on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation should be treated differently than an industrial hemp farmer in Kentucky," Purdon said. "We are hopeful the court will lift this injunction, which is a relic from an old, failed era of industrial hemp regulation."
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