LENAPE LAMENTATIONS IN FAVOR OF LEGAL POT

To the Editor,

New Jersey’s native people, the Lenape, which were forcibly exiled to bleak reservations in Oklahoma and Kansas, should be invited to return home and start a pot business.

Fort Monmouth, a recently closed U.S. Army base in central New Jersey (near NYC) with the infrastructure of a city, would make an ideal location for the first Lenape reservation in our state.

The persecution and exile of the Lenape from New Jersey is eerily similar to the South African system of apartheid. Under apartheid, many blacks were shipped off to faraway “homelands”, where they were stripped of their limited civil rights.

The federal government recently stated that tribal governments would be allowed to legalize marijuana in their jurisdictions for medical and recreational use, as numerous states already have.

A legal marijuana industry operated by the Lenape in New Jersey would provide the necessary income for a successful return of the tribe. Fort Monmouth could become home to a vibrant Lenape-run cannabis industry, that would provide jobs for people of all backgrounds.

Call Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno at 609-777-0884 and tell her that now that Fort Monmouth is no longer in use by the federal government, the land should revert to it’s original owner, the Lenape nation.

Sincerely,

Eric Hafner
Toms River