States leverage poverty to extract pieces sovereignty from Native nations in cannabis, water, and mineral agreements.
The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe signed Minnesota’s fifth cannabis compact on October 30, 2025. The state’s governor stood next to the chairman for the photo. The deal lets the Nation sell cannabis off its territory. The price was state oversight.
This is the modern treaty.
It is not just cannabis. It is water in the West. Nations with the oldest water rights must hand them over to state management systems for a single drop. It is minerals. Indigenous Nations with much coal and oil see their resources governed by state leasing rules.
The pattern is brutal and consistent. A state builds a fence around an economy. It tells sovereign nations to enter, but the cost for this rollercoaster is a bit more of its self-rule.
In New Mexico, a state law forced Nations to sign cannabis compacts adopting state tracking systems. In Washington, the liquor board claimed total control over cannabis, making Indigenous leaders beg to run Nation own businesses. In California, they must copy state regulations word for word.
The choice is not a choice. It is between a costly legal war and a slow, quiet surrender. Poverty is the state’s leverage. Sovereignty is currency.
The mechanism changed from treaties to compacts. The goal did not. It is the same old deal. Indigenous future for state permission.
