Hemp injunction lifted

FARGO, N.D. (AP)

A federal judge has lifted a decade-old injunction prohibiting a man on a South Dakota Indian Reservation from producing industrial hemp.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Viken says there has been a 'significant shift in the landscape' since the 2004 order was filed against Alex White Plume, an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. That includes the change in hemp laws in the 2014 farm bill.

The order does not resolve the ongoing question of whether cultivation of hemp on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation should be legal.

White Plume's attorney, Timothy Purdon, says his client was the subject of a one-of-a-kind injunction and the order 'brings some justice to Native America's first modern day hemp farmer.'