By Joe Morey News Editor
The Lac Courte Oreilles Tribal Governing Board (TGB) voted 5-0-0 recently to join the Inter-Tribal Cannabis Commission, an agency that specializes in cannabis program establishment, development, compliance, tracking, and reporting for its’ member tribes.
Following a presentation lead by LCO’s cannabis consultant, Thi Le, a motion was made by Gary “Little Guy” Clause to join the organization, and it was seconded by LCO Secretary-Treasurer Bill Trepanier, who also happens to be leading the cannabis movement for the Tribe.
During the presentation, the TGB learned that ITCC operates “as an independent government body authorized by the sovereign member tribes, for the purpose of regulating cannabis on Indian lands,” and have been in the industry for 6 years continually growing their Tribal membership.
“ITCC is primarily a compliance tracking service for all matters regulatory, inspections, licensing, tracking, reporting, etc.,” explained Thi Le. “They integrate technology software to provide real-time data and digital record keeping. Overall, they have an impressively streamlined operation starting from regulatory codes through background checks, inspections, employee ids, seed-to-sale tracking management, accounting, reporting, and hearings.”
Thi said the first step is to get the Tribe’s ordinance completed.
“With the completed cannabis code, we can go to the state and show that we have our ducks in a row,” Thi said. She explained the next steps would be the regulatory set up, licensing and then all things compliance.
Thi said they will be able to work with ITCC to fill in all the gaps.
“As a Member Tribe, LCO will have access to generalized and customized boilerplate templates for ordinances, regulations, reporting forms, and commission structure, which will expedite LCO’s progress in these areas,” Thi said. “Additionally, ITCC will provide LCO with industry updates and can serve as a liaison between government officials (under the direction of LCO).”
Thi said ITCC can also do investigations as a third party if there are ever any problems.
“The cannabis business is tightly regulated, and they can help with that,” Thi noted. She further stated they collect all the data and can provide to tribal leadership all necessary reports.
Thi said all the work they’ve been doing since February is leading to LCO starting its own cannabis program.
Thi said after the first three steps are completed, then they can go to Governor Evers, Attorney General Josh Kaul, local law enforcement and leadership and show them we have the data analysis.
“ITCC has experience in developing these programs for Tribes in states where marijuana is not legal or are developing their regulatory structure,” Thi said. “They also have Member Tribes who are under PL-280 and may be able to provide insight into legal strategies. Lastly, ITCC regards sovereignty to the highest degree and will utilize resources to uphold those tenets.”
Thi said the Tribe’s cannabis program and all that is developed from that plan is being created from best practices in legal states where it’s already happening.
She added additionally that from those states, there is a lot of data shows that people coming off opioids are using cannabis for withdrawals with much success.
“It’s important to show the state that we are ready,” Thi said.
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