Green Eugene
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20th February 2023
Settler Cannabis: a Book Preview with Dr. Kaitlin Reed – Green Eugene
“I never had any intention of writing about cannabis,” Dr. Kaitlin Reed, assistant professor of Native American Studies at Cal Poly Humboldt, said. “I can’t wait to not be the weed person.”
For Reed, it’s as if there was no choice in writing about cannabis. As a Yurok and Hupa tribal member witnessing environmental violations in ancestral territories and throughout U.S. history, Reed saw the urgency and concern over landscape devastation paired with the current lack of critical analysis. Modern cannabis cultivation and the market it drives are built on the same foundation of exploitation of Indigenous people by white colonizers as seen with other natural resource industries such as gold, timber and fish.