Puyallup Native American Tribe to Open Cannabis Testing Facility

The Puyallup Tribe joins ranks with the Squaxin Island and Suquamish Tribes by signing a compact with the State of Washington to engage in its cannabis industry. However, the Puyallup Tribe is not going into business for the production, processing or retailing of cannabis, it is opening a cannabis testing facility.

The tribe recently purchased the Trans-Pacific Trade Center at 3700 Pacific Highway E. in Fife with plans to turn it into a cancer treatment center. The Tribe’s lab (which will join the 14 other state-certified testing labs) will be owned and operated by PTOI Testing Lab, Inc., and will offer “safety and potency tests to holders of state marijuana licenses, among others.” Other clients could include universities conducting scientific research on cannabis. Rather than pursuing recreational cannabis’ economic development, the Puyallup Tribe is highly focused on developing medical cannabis.

Under the compact, PTOI Testing Lab, Inc. is authorized to do only one thing: “Operation of a commercial testing lab that will, for a fee, conduct scientific and safety testing services for substances including cannabis.” The compact also mandates that the tribe will meet existing certified testing criteria, testing traceability, and quality assurance testing standards as set forth in WAC 314-55-102 and 103, and it will submit to state inspections pending a heads up to tribal police beforehand.

“Ultimately, the Puyallup compact leaves the door open for the Tribe to later seek to incorporate provisions regarding the cultivation, processing, and/or retailing of cannabis.”

The compact mentions nothing about the Puyallup Tribe engaging in the production, processing and/or retailing of cannabis. And though the Suquamish and Squaxin Island compacts make concessions for the tribes’ commercial medical cannabis activity, no such liberties are currently listed in the Puyallup compact. Specifically, the Suquamish and Squaxin Island compacts allow those tribes to sell medical cannabis in concert with medical treatment on their tribal lands without assessing any tribal tax (unless the tribes opt to implement one). Nonetheless, the Puyallup compact stipulates that:

The parties anticipate that they will later amend this Compact to add other elements of the broader subject area of marijuana to the agreement, in order to ensure a lawful and well-regulated marijuana market, encourage economic development in Indian Country, and provide fiscal benefits to both the tribe and the state.

Ultimately, the Puyallup compact leaves the door open for the tribe to later seek to incorporate provisions regarding the cultivation, processing and/or retailing of cannabis. Though it has been a mixed bag for tribes regarding federal intervention with tribal cannabis in states that have no or very loose state cannabis regulations, thus far those Washington tribes that have signed compacts with the tate of Washington haven’t had any issues with Big Brother. The main question for Washington tribes continues to be what happens with the Feds if a tribe goes outside the state compact system to set up its own cannabis regime? We have yet to find out.