More than 4,000 of people lined up at The Great Smoky Cannabis Co. this past weekend as the tribal marijuana retailer began the first-ever legal adult-use cannabis sales within North Carolina.<\/p>\n
Michell Hicks, principal chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), which voted a year ago to legalize adult-use cannabis on its 57,000-acre Qualla Boundary<\/a>, called the launch \u201ca significant milestone for our tribe, marking a new chapter of opportunity and growth.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis initiative is our right as a Tribal government to assert our Sovereignty,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to take a moment to personally acknowledge and thank everyone who has poured their hard work, time, and passion into making this day possible,\u201d he said. \u201cYour dedication has been instrumental in bringing this vision to life, and I\u2019m confident that this is just the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n Sales began at 10 a.m. local time on Saturday, with any adult 21 and older eligible to buy marijuana products.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a special day for us,\u201d Forrest Parker, general manager for Qualla Enterprises, which operates Great Smoky Cannabis Co., told the tribe\u2019s newspaper, Cherokee One Feather<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s a special day for the Eastern Band of Cherokees, period.\u201d<\/p>\n Videos posted to social media on opening day Saturday showed a long line of cars waiting to take advantage of the dispensary\u2019s drive-thru.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you see the people in this line, it\u2019s clear,\u201d Parker said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s very validating, I think, to the plant and to the medicine that comes from the ground. Which, nobody understands that more than Indigenous people.\u201d<\/p>\n Great Smoky Cannabis\u00a0began selling\u00a0medical\u00a0marijuana on April 20<\/a> of this year. In July, the store began recreational sales, but only to members of EBCI and other federally recognized Indian tribes. Saturday marked the first time any adult 21 and older could purchase cannabis from the store.<\/p>\n Speaking to local reporters on Monday, Parker said the opening was \u201chumbling\u201d and that he expects even more activity as momentum builds.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was just an absolutely humbling and insane turnout,\u201d Parker told Blue Ridge Public Radio<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n He added, according to local ABC affiliate WLOS<\/a>: \u201cYou\u2019re going to see us in the next weeks and months be working on a lot of things that are visible and a lot of things that hopefully are very positively felt.\u201d<\/p>\n One hiccup so far is that since the weekend\u2019s launch, Great Smoky Cannabis Co.\u2019s Instagram account<\/a> appears to have been deactivated, though it has since launched a new one<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n Representatives at Great Smoky Cannabis Co. could not be reached for comment this week. Contacted by email, Neil Denman, executive director of the tribe\u2019s Cannabis Control Board (CCB), referred Marijuana Moment\u2019s request for comment to representatives of Qualla Enterprises, who did not respond on Monday or Tuesday.<\/p>\n Denman himself said CCB couldn\u2019t immediately speak to sales metrics from the weekend\u2019s launch.<\/p>\n EBCI Principal Chief Hicks also did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n None of North Carolina\u2019s neighbors\u2014Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina or Virginia\u2014has legal adult-use cannabis sales, meaning the Great Smokey Cannabis Company is the sole marijuana retailer within a region in the Southeast spanning hundreds of square miles.<\/p>\n Notably, products purchased at Great Smoky Cannabis Co. cannot legally be taken off tribal land. Nor, however, can cannabis be consumed on store property.<\/p>\n EBCI\u2019s moves to legalize and regulate cannabis sales to not just tribal members but also visitors has been a controversial affair. Last year\u2019s vote prompted\u00a0blowback from congressional lawmakers from North Carolina<\/a>\u00a0and an effort to\u00a0reduce federal funding for tribes and other jurisdictions that legalize marijuana<\/a>.<\/p>\n Passage of the measure on a 70\u201330 margin represented not just members\u2019 support for the reform itself but also an assertion of tribal sovereignty.<\/p>\n Rob Pero, founder of the Indigenous Cannabis Industry Association (ICIA), recently told Marijuana Moment even outside the region, EBCI\u2019s move to legalize and launch sales have \u201csent shockwaves through Indian country,\u201d underscoring the power and potential of what sovereign tribes can do.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of tribes have already taken action on their own, on their own lands, to either decriminalize or legalize in some cases\u2014and now for the betterment of the state, not just their own interests,\u201d Pero said.<\/p>\n Marijuana legalization on the Qualla Boundary is expected to eventually bring in millions of dollars in revenue for EBCI. Parker at Qualla Enterprises said last July that \u201cIf adult-use were legalized, revenue could conservatively reach $385 million in the first year and exceed $800 million by year five.\u201d<\/p>\n In March, ahead of the dispensary\u2019s start of medical marijuana sales, two Republican senators\u00a0wrote to federal, state and local officials to ask what steps they were taking to enforce marijuana prohibition<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAs our nation is facing an unprecedented drug crisis that is harming our communities, it is vital to learn what measures your departments and agencies are taking to uphold current federal and state laws,\u201d wrote Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Ted Budd (R-NC). The matter, they added, \u201craises multiple questions on how North Carolina communities will be kept safe.\u201d<\/p>\n The tribe\u2019s moves to legalize despite North Carolina\u2019s ongoing prohibition of marijuana drew criticism from other politicians, as well, including Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC). Ahead of last year\u2019s election on adult use, Edwards, who is not Native, authored an op-ed in Cherokee One Feather, the tribal newspaper, warning that legalization on EBCI land \u201cwould be irresponsible, and I intend to stop it<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n While the U.S. legally cannot block the tribe from passing its own laws around marijuana, Edwards threatened to cut federal funding from the tribe if legalization proceeds. He said legislation he introduced in Congress called the Stop Pot Act that would \u201cdefund governments that ignore federal law.\u201d The bill has not progressed, however.<\/p>\n Edwards told local a local news outlet earlier this summer that he planned to \u201cremain steadfast\u201d in his opposition to legalization.<\/p>\n District Attorney Ashley Hornsby Welch, meanwhile, has said that she respects EBCI\u2019s tribal sovereignty but intends to enforce state law against marijuana.<\/p>\n \u201cThe mission, duty and privilege of the 43rd Prosecutorial District is to enforce state laws. We do not pick certain laws to enforce and ignore others,\u201d she told Citizen Times in April.<\/p>\n Prosecutorial District 43 spokesperson Quintin Ellison recently\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0the paper that Welch\u2019s earlier statement stands \u201cas is.\u201d<\/p>\n ICIA\u2019s Pero told Marijuana Moment that EBCI\u2019s willingness to navigate the pushback from U.S. and North Carolina officials has been inspiring to other tribes attempting to assert their own sovereignty, regardless of members\u2019 views on cannabis legalization itself.<\/p>\n \u201cTribes have decided, at least in some cases, we want to own the narratives,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to tell our stories regardless of fear of repercussions and judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n As the tribe was trying to get its medical marijuana program off the ground last year, operators ran into numerous delays over matters such as marijuana transportation, lab testing and banking.<\/p>\n One obstacle was that its cannabis production plans involved transporting medical marijuana along a short stretch of state-owned roadway, which Swain County officials said presented a problem.<\/p>\n Tribal governments in a handful of U.S. states have entered the marijuana business as more jurisdictions legalize. Notably, in Minnesota, where state lawmakers\u00a0passed an adult-use marijuana program last year<\/a>, tribes are leading the way.<\/p>\n Minnesota\u2019s cannabis law allows\u00a0tribes within the state to open marijuana businesses<\/a>\u00a0before the state itself begins licensing retailers. Some tribal governments\u2014including the\u00a0Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians<\/a>, the\u00a0White Earth Nation<\/a>\u00a0and the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe\u2014have already entered the legal market.<\/p>\n It\u2019s believed that in 2020, the Oglala Sioux Tribe, located in South Dakota, became the\u00a0first tribe to vote to legalize marijuana within a U.S. state where the plant remained illegal<\/a>.<\/p>\n In Wisconsin, where Pero is located,\u00a0indigenous leaders have worked together to craft a campaign called Wisconsin Wellness<\/a>, which earlier this week held an event at the state Capitol in favor of legalizing medical marijuana.<\/p>\n Marijuana Companies File Opening Appellate Brief In Case Challenging Federal Prohibition<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Thousands Flock To Tribal Marijuana Store In North Carolina, Where Cannabis Is Otherwise Illegal, For Launch Of Adult-Use Sales<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
More than 4,000 of people lined up at The Great Smoky Cannabis Co. this past weekend as the tribal marijuana retailer began the first-ever legal adult-use cannabis sales within North Carolina. Michell Hicks, principal chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), which voted a year ago to legalizeContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77767"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77768,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77767\/revisions\/77768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Thousands Flock To Tribal Marijuana Store In North Carolina, Where Cannabis Is Otherwise Illegal, For Launch Of Adult-Use Sales<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"