Indian nation trying to ban legal marijuana on non-reservation lands in Washington? Not exactly...
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The Associated Press is running this somewhat overexcited article:
SeattlePI.com, 1/13/14: Yakama Nation fighting marijuana in 10 counties
The Yakama Nation is moving to ban marijuana in all 10 counties of its ancestral lands, covering one-fifth of the state's land mass. ...
...under the Yakama Treaty of 1855 with the federal government, the tribe was allowed to maintain fishing, hunting and food-gathering rights on more than 12 million acres of its historic lands that were ceded to the United States. Now they want to use those rights to include a ban on marijuana on all ceded lands. ...
One minor problem with the article: it's wrong. The Yakamas are not currently proposing to ban marijuana use or possession anywhere except on their own reservation. (Which is still a bad decision, in my opinion.)
What they are doing is filing official objections to over 600 license applications for marijuana-related businesses. These businesses would all be located in a large area of central Washington that was ceded by the Yakamas to the United States in an 1855 treaty.
Here is a much better article that explains the situation:
Yakima Herald-Republic, 1/12/14: Yakamas want to ban pot on 12 million acres of ceded land
The central issue is "ceded land". In 1855, the Yakama confederated tribes were pressured into signing a treaty under which they ceded most of their ancestral territory to the government, and agreed to relocate to a much smaller reservation. The Yakamas retained only limited rights on the ceded land:
...the right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed places, in common with the citizens of the Territory, and of erecting temporary buildings for curing them: together with the privilege of hunting, gathering roots and berries, and pasturing their horses and cattle upon open and unclaimed land. ...
Now, this doesn't sound much like it includes the right to overrule state law. Nevertheless, that is what the Yakama leaders are claiming. From the Yakima Herald-Republic article:
...The tribe’s options include suing the state in federal court if no compromise can be reached, Yakama Nation Tribal Council Chairman Harry Smiskin said.
“We’re merely exercising what the treaty allows us to do, and that is prevent marijuana grows (and sales) on those lands,” Smiskin said. ...
“To my knowledge, this would be the first time” the tribe has sought to prevent the implementation of a state law on all ceded land, said George Colby, an attorney for the Yakama Nation.
“The tribe’s stance is if you don’t fight, you don’t get to win,” Colby said. ...
I don't think the Yakama Nation leaders are acting in the best interests of their own members here, but it's even more aggravating that they want to impose their nanny-state attitudes on their neighbors.