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PEARL RIVER, Miss.—Members of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians will vote Tuesday on whether or not to loosen marijuana laws on Tribal land on the same day that six communities vote for leaders for nine Tribal Council seats. Referendum 2025-01 asks voters if they “support the Tribe developing legislation to decriminalize and regulate possession, production, and distribution of marijuana on Tribal lands.”
The Tribal Election Committee last month wrapped up a series of information sessions in the eight Choctaw communities throughout east central Mississippi and one satellite community in Henning, Tennessee. The Henning residents’ votes will count in the Bogue Chitto, Mississippi, community tally; Henning residents are represented by the Bogue Chitto councilmen due to historic ties with the Mississippi community.
The Choctaw Tribal Council, at a special call meeting on March 27, passed Resolution CHO 25-044, calling for a referendum vote to “determine the will of the Choctaw people”; 14 members of the 17-member legislative body voted for it, with the other three representatives absent.
If the majority opposes this initiative, “nothing more will be done,” Choctaw Chief Cyrus Ben stated at the community meetings held in May.
“This vote does not automatically authorize or legalize marijuana on Choctaw tribal trust land,” he said.
However, an affirmative vote will allow the Tribal Council to move forward with securing consultants for a feasibility study, along with authorizing research on the effects of public health and potential regulations.
During the early evening meetings throughout the reservation’s communities in May, the Tribal Council Election Committee introduced a structured agenda with strict procedures for how residents could ask questions. The Chief, along with that community’s current councilmembers, issued opening statements with a recorded video presentation that began afterward. The presentation included information from different tribes’ experiences with the issue across the U.S.
Officials said that they chose the format in order to ensure that information shared would be uniform throughout all the Choctaw communities.
In each community, a question-and-answer session followed the presentation, where officials requested that attendees write questions down beforehand, allowing only residents from that community to ask questions. At the Pearl River meeting in Neshoba County on May 19, one man was at odds with the format.
“We should be able to speak our minds,” James Johnson said sternly.
Officials assured the elder that his questions would be considered and someone would assist him in submitting them. The panel consisted of Pearl River Council representatives, Chief Ben, a representative from the Tribe’s attorney general’s office and two members of the Tribal Election Committee.
Ben gave the majority of responses, while deferring some to the attorney general representative and Choctaw Health Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Walt Willis.
“If we vote yes on this, how will that affect our job?” one voter asked.
“How will the tribe regulate marijuana on our reservation? Will we have dispensaries, too?” asked another.
Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians Tribal Chief Cyrus Ben said the marijuana referendum “does not mean that dime bags will start selling on our streets the next day,” during a meeting in Pearl River, Miss., on May 19, 2025. Photo courtesy Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians
Ben said that he does not have all the answers right away. The referendum vote, he said, is simply the beginning of the process.
“However, this does not mean that dime bags will start selling on our streets the next day,” the chief cautioned to some stifled, nervous laughter. “All this means is that (the Tribal Council) will conduct a study of feasibility to determine the best use of marijuana on our lands. That is the next step after this vote.”
He encouraged those in attendance to vote, especially the Red Water and Bogue Homa communities, who normally vote only in chief election years, when their representatives are on the ballot. The next chief election year is in 2027.
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