Pot Gamble

WARM SPRINGS — In a nondescript, low-slung building on a barren plateau above the village of Warm Springs, a tight band of dreamers imagines a vibrant future for the hard-luck Indian reservation. And while it’s clearly no pipe dream, a drug — cannabis — does lie at the heart of their strategy to reinvigorate the reservation.

They dream of Warm Springs rising—not like smoke but like a mountain slowly pushing up through the earth.

Warm Springs Ventures inhabits the building’s warren of cubicles. The company, established by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs council in 2001 to explore business opportunities for the reservation, envisions a tribal economy powered by new engines of commerce — first among them cannabis.

http://www.oregonbusiness.com/article/item/17304-pot-gamble