Tribes & Cannabis Unite with Attacks on Stitt, Target Native Oklahomans in Bid to Exploit Eastern Half of State

How to Steal a State: Midterm Minute - November 5, 2022

Within this brief Midterm Minute:

• Cannabis money used to target Native Oklahomans by mail. Shell PAC The Oklahoma Project strikes again.

• McGirt, Native cannabis and the Biden administration: As tribes and big cannabis marry, will Eastern Oklahoma become the biggest pot farm in America, pay NO taxes and be above the law?

• The Amazon of Native Cannabis: Alliances are forming to build an online juggernaut with Oklahoma as home base.

• Will Hofmeister work WITH the tribes (and big cannabis) or FOR them?

• Why is AG candidate Gentner Drummond getting campaign donations from out-of-state tribes?

• It turns out today’s cannabis is more harmful than medicinal. Who's looking out for Native and non-Native Oklahomans?

Cannabis money used by tribes to target Native Oklahomans by mail. Shell PAC The Oklahoma Project strikes again.

In total, The Oklahoma Project and Imagine This Oklahoma PACs have collected $6.4 million of cannabis industry money through shell entity Oklahoma Forward. They’re using it all to support previously indicted gubernatorial candidate Joy Hofmeister (now D). Now it appears that at least one of these pot funds is teaming with Oklahoma’s Native tribes, also major financial supporters of Hofmeister, to attack incumbent Kevin Stitt through their own tribal member registries. As previously reported, some of the tribes appear to have their own dark money flowing through the independent expenditure Conservative Voice of America but are now working with big cannabis to disparage Governor Stitt.

The following mailers recently landing in the mailboxes of Native Oklahomans, courtesy of The Oklahoma Project and a tribal mailing list:

While these claims that Governor Stitt is out to “take tribal land” are sufficiently scary, it’s a smokescreen. As previously reported, the big beefs between Stitt and the tribes started with the gaming compacts that set the rules for the tribal monopoly on casino operations in the state. In short, it was about money. There were no threats of land grabs. Yet the tribes are using cannabis money to scare up the Native vote against Stitt. What’s really happening within this alliance between the tribes and cannabis?

McGirt, Native cannabis and the Biden administration: As tribes and big cannabis marry, will Eastern Oklahoma become the biggest pot farm in America, pay NO taxes and be above the law?

In the wake of the McGirt decision, jurisdiction over Eastern Oklahoma, at least criminally speaking, lies more in the hands of Biden’s DOJ than in the hands of the state’s government. For those outside of Oklahoma, in this landmark case, the tribes argued on the side of a convicted, lifelong pedophile to assert sovereignty over nearly half of the state. On its face, the case was about criminal jurisdiction but the SCOTUS’ ruling in favor of the child rapist tapped the first of many concerning jurisdictional dominoes. This publication detailed the unfolding fallout within a piece about tribal-connected Conservative Voice of America.

From previous reporting:

McGirt, Money and Cannabis

The McGirt decision is not restricted in its impact to matters of criminal prosecution and has already moved to matters of money, including taxation, energy and water rights, turnpike fees and business regulation. In his comments about the ramifications of the McGirt decision, Alexander B. Gray states:

“The chaos caused by McGirt now threatens to undermine Oklahoma’s economic foundations. Local businesses in the area covered by the ruling are encountering multiple tax bills, one from the state and another from the tribe whose land the Supreme Court says they are on. Uncertainty abounds as to where this will end, and whether mineral rights, critical in an oil and gas state like Oklahoma, will be subject to state or tribal law. In an era of Washington-induced regulatory confusion, this is the last thing Oklahoma’s businesses need.”

Alexander B. Gray, American Foreign Policy Council and recent U.S. Senate candidate

Gray was not playing worst-case-scenario with his comments. The tribes are claiming immunity from a bevy of state regulations, and, in a federal power grab, Biden quickly made a move to federalize mining rights in eastern Oklahoma based on the McGirt decision.

The tribes and the cannabis industry have already identified immense opportunities for expanding cannabis growing on lands affected by the McGirt decision outside of the state’s criminal and regulatory jurisdiction, which would include a sizeable area owned by state AG candidate and BlueSky Bank majority owner Gentner Drummond.

Now technically under the jurisdiction of the federal government, who’s 2014 Wilkinson Memo declared a hands-off approach to cannabis regulation, one cannabis consulting company boldly declares on its website:

“Any cannabis operation on Native American land only requires a state-issued charter in order to get up and running. The terms of such a charter are fairly lax. Essentially, unless a government official walks in on something illegal happening, there’s nothing that the state can do about it. Furthermore, because they don’t technically operate within the United States, Native American cannabis businesses do not have to do any reporting whatsoever.”

After the McGirt decision, even the above mentioned “state-issued charter” is a questionable requirement for tribal cannabis operations.

And while the Native tribes, back in 2018, initially opted out of legalized medical marijuana on their properties due to its federally illegal status and the fear of losing federal funding, they appear to have no fear of the current Biden administration. Tribal organizations are now jumping into the pot industry full force and hoping to be unimpeded in their efforts by a hopeful Governor Hofmeister.

The Amazon of Native Cannabis: Alliances are forming to build an online juggernaut with Oklahoma as home base.

A group based in Oklahoma has built alliances with Native tribes inside and outside of Oklahoma for the purpose of building a tribal cannabis economy. The Native American Cannabis Alliance (NACA) is a Cherokee arm based out of Cherry Tree, Oklahoma, a tiny community of less than 1,000 residents in Adair County, whose reach is already impressive.

According to the online publication Hemp Today (Sept 2021):

“The Native American Cannabis Alliance (NACA) said it signed memoranda of understanding with indigenous farmers from three Native American tribes as it looks to spur cannabis farming on over 500,000 acres of tribal lands in the USA…It (NACA) reached the MOUs with the Mohawk Nation, and Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal Nations. Mohawk nation comprises communities in southeastern Canada and northeastern New York state, mainly in the areas of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal Nations are in western Oklahoma.”

This effort reflects a partnership between the Cherokee Nation, through its Native Health Matters Foundation, and an online cannabis vendor called Everscore. Everscore helps cannabis businesses put their products online.

This partnership will support tribal growers while purchasing their crops up-front. This is big business. They’re going to need a lot of land. And it’s better yet if that land falls within the area affected by the McGirt decision where oversight and even tax responsibilities might be avoided. While the Cheyenne and Arapaho lands already involved in the alliance are in Western Oklahoma, the Cherokee Nation appears to be leading this effort, as it has the entire McGirt matter. The big Five Tribes seems to follow in these matters where the Cherokees lead.

NADA is just one of several organizations focused on Oklahoma for its Native cannabis potential. Judging by its incomplete website, NADA is still getting its act together and may be awaiting decisions on several McGirt related cases seeking to clarify the sweeping decision.

Will Hofmeister work WITH the tribes (and big cannabis) or FOR them?

It’s no surprise that the Five Tribes collectively endorsed Joy Hofmeister (now D) and have been big funders of both her campaign, and likely, the dark money group Conservative Voice of America attacking Governor Stitt.

The tribes say Hofmeister respects their sovereignty but it’s difficult not to assume she’ll be beholden to the wishes of tribal leaders going forward. Hofmeister won’t be knocking on the gates of their cannabis operations with a tax bill or imposing needed regulations. At this point, they may as well make their candidate purchase official by taking Governor Stitt’s Cherokee card and bestowing it upon Hofmeister.

Why the hard sell of Hofmeister to tribal members? Post-McGirt living has been concerning for many Native Oklahomans after tribal leaders fought not to protect them.

In all the McGirt power-grabbing, tribal leaders seem to have forgotten their own. Just as they’d sided with a serial child rapist in the McGirt case to gain the power, they argued against safety for Native victims within the Castro-Huerta follow up case.

From previous reporting:

The Case of Victor Manuel Castro-Huerta

In response to the McGirt decision, Governor Stitt, Attorney General John O’Connor and the state have filed 30 challenges related to the untenable issues involved for Oklahoma residents. The first of these cases to be heard by the Supreme Court involves a non-Native felon and inmate seeking to have his sentence vacated based on the McGirt decision. Victor Manuel Castro-Huerta, a non-Native illegal alien, was sentenced to 35 years for the severe abuse and neglect of his 5-year-old stepdaughter who is legally blind and has cerebral palsy.

“Dehydrated, emaciated and covered in lice, the child weighed only 19 pounds. An investigation revealed she had been living in a crib filled with bedbugs and cockroaches. While children her age would normally require five bottles a day, Castro-Huerta admitted he only gave his daughter between 12 and 18 bottles the previous month.” 

In a baffling display of disregard for the safety of this child, the tribes have argued that the state has no jurisdiction to prosecute non-Native criminals when a native victim is involved, despite the child’s mother and the child not being members of any tribal nation in Oklahoma. Native Oklahomans are now in the same boat as all others across the state and across our country, as those in power insist on framing the criminals as victims, leaving the most vulnerable, including and especially children, without voice or protection. With the arrival of identity politics and the dilution of any shared moral agreement about how people deserve to be protected and punished across the country, Native people in Oklahoma find themselves equally abandoned by the elites within their tribal governing bodies.

In their argument, the tribes were willing to make their own citizens, and in particular tribal children, a target for violent crime and child abuse. Just as pedophiles seek positions that give them access to children (See Season 4 of How to Steal a State for Oklahoma teacher convictions), such deviant minds would selectively seek to abuse Oklahoma’s Native children if the tribes had prevailed in the Castro-Huerta case, knowing prosecution would be less likely.

Fortunately, the Supreme Court sided with the state of Oklahoma, allowing them, at minimum, to protect all Oklahomans from non-Native criminals on any land within the state.

Even the Tulsa World has admitted that life in post-McGirt times is less safe for tribal members:

And voter registration swings, as charted by Muskogee Politico, are showing even heavily Native, Eastern Oklahoma is making a break for law-and-order, away from Democrat control:

Thus, tribal leaders and big cannabis felt the need for scary mailers to frighten Native Oklahomans back to their desired voting patterns. What else will this dark money partnership need to make their tribal cannabis domination dream come true? A like-minded state attorney general.

Why is AG candidate Gentner Drummond getting campaign donations from out-of-state tribes?

Still think a national network that allows Native tribes to dominate the cannabis industry through online selling is far-fetched? Then why are tribes from North Dakota and California donating the maximum to state attorney general candidate Gentner Drummond’s campaign?

It’s getting pretty cozy in the elite circles where cannabis, law, banking and tribal leadership meet.

It turns out today’s cannabis is more harmful than medicinal. Who's looking out for Native and non-Native Oklahomans?

Tribal leaders, Hofmeister and Drummond appear to be in it for power and payoff, not public service. At this point, even CNN is admitting legalized cannabis is far from medicinal:

Vote wisely, Oklahoma.

The full How to Steal a State series can be accessed on The V1SUT Vantage’s main Substack page.