Cherokee to issue first medical marijuana cards to buy at NC dispensary superstore
The Cherokee nation will begin issuing regulated medical marijuana cards this week to buy the first batch of legal weed in North Carolina., a tribal official told The Charlotte Observer on Monday.
The tribe hasn’t announced an opening date for its cannabis superstore in the North Carolina mountains. Officials at the tribe’s for-profit cannabis subsidiary, Qualla Enterprises LLC, previously told The Charlotte Observer they hope to open the dispensary by December.
The dispensary on U.S. 19 near Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort will be the first and only place to legally purchase marijuana in the state, as marijuana remains illegal in North Carolina. The dispensary is in the tribe’s massive, refurbished old bingo hall 46 miles west of Asheville in the Great Smoky Mountains.
In a historic vote Sept. 7, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in western North Carolina overwhelmingly approved adult use of marijuana on tribal land, certified election results by EBCI’s election board showed.
The tribe had already approved use and controlled sale of medical cannabis on its 57,000-acre Qualla Boundary.
Go inside North Carolina’s only marijuana dispensary as its doors open for first time
Doctor’s note, please
The EBCI Cannabis Control Board has issued agent cards to control board employees and cannabis industry workers, board Executive Director Neil Denman told the Observer on Monday.
“We hope to have all of those completed mid-week this week and can move towards issuing patient cards near the end of this week and start whittling down our back log of over 1,000 received so far,” Denman said in an email.
The board has approved 817 of the 1,005 card applications it’s received, Cherokee One Feather reported.
People must include a doctor’s note confirming they have a medical condition that cannabis can treat.
Only enrolled EBCI members will receive cards at first, followed by North Carolina residents, the Observer previously reported.
“Now Accepting Patient Card Applications from all North Carolina Residents,” reads a headline on the Cannabis Control Board website, EBCI-CCB.org.
The night before the adult-use vote, tribal officials held an open house at their refurbished dispensary.
“Great Smoky Cannabis Company, est. 2021” read small signs that greeted visitors at the entrance to the dispensary. The name of the company also appeared in smaller lettering in the Cherokee language.
Transportation, funding concerns
The tribe has $30 million of inventory waiting to be taken from its grow operation to the dispensary, Qualla Enterprises board member Marty Stamey told the EBCI Tribal Council at a council work session Thursday.
The grow operation is about six miles from the dispensary.
The tribe is still working on a transportation plan with the Swain County Sheriff’s Office, because part of the road outside the tribe’s grow operation is in the county, tribal officials said.
The sheriff’s office inexplicably conducted a driver’s license checkpoint at the entrance to the grow operation early this year, a Qualla Enterprises official told the Observer when reporters visited the site in September.
And Sheriff Curtis Cochran told the Smoky Mountain News in June that marijuana on North Carolina roads remains illegal, although he didn’t say if his deputies would stop trucks hauling marijuana from the grow operation.
Cochran didn’t return a phone message from the Observer on Friday.
Mike Parker, the new chairman of the EBCI Tribal Council, referenced the road conundrum at Thursday’s council work session.
“We haven’t been able to transport the product to the dispensary, is my understanding,” he told fellow council members, according to a video of the meeting posted on Facebook by the EBCI communications department. “We have no revenue, because we haven’t been able to transport the product.”
The council also called Thursday’s work session to discuss, in closed session, lending Qualla Enterprises an additional $19 million. The money would help cover operating expenses and employee wages, newly elected EBCI Principal Chief Michell Hicks told the council.
Hicks introduced the funding resolution, telling the council: “I think this is definitely headed in the right direction, based on the information I have. I like the structure, and I like the direction of this.”
“But I still need additional information, and I’m sure some of the new council members need additional information, to make a firm decision,” the chief said.
Hicks’ resolution said Qualla Enterprises is out of money, and the $19 million would help prevent layoffs.
