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Newest
Developments on the Pine Ridge Reservation
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by Michaela Mayer - Daniels
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On
February 21st
2005
Milo Yellow Hair came to AKIN and told us about
the newest developments on the Pine Ridge Reservation where he is living.
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Gardening
Projects
According
to
Milo
, on the reservation
1 out of 4 men over 45 are unhealthy, mostly because of diabetes and
health problems related to it. He said that most of the people don’t
make the right choices when it comes to eating. To fight this,
Milo
started a gardening
project to inform people, how important it is, to eat food that is still
“alive” like vegetables and fruits out of the garden and not dead
for years like the commodity food. One of the existing projects of this
kind in Pine Ridge is the “Slim Butte Tiospaye”. Further, he also
promotes to work one hour on the fields to do at least some exercise per
day.
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Industrial Hemp
Production
Another
big project is industrial hemp planting, even though it has a long
history of different conflicts with the officials. Since industrial hemp
looks similar to the drug called marihuana, it often gets mistaken for
it. Not just once the drug enforcement came and destroyed the hemp
fields with the result that the hemp seeds got strewn and new plants
grew again. Out of the hemp plant, a lot of things can be made, like oil,
clothes, beer, and even walls for housing. Even though this would give
the people a lot of possibilities to do and build things on their own,
the drug enforcement doesn’t allow the hemp planting. Industrial hemp
with less than 0.1 of THC – the chemical which is responsible for the
“high” effect” – is officially allowed. The people on the Pine
Ridge Reservation found an easy way to test their plants and it shows
results at an average of 0.03 percent of THC. But even that doesn’t
convince the drug enforcement.
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