Cultivation and medicinal usage of marijuana is already legal.
by Richard L. Thornton, Architect & City Planner
In 2021, the Eastern Band of Cherokees in North Carolina legalized the cultivation, sales and use of marijuana on the reservation for medical purposes. Members of the tribe will vote in September on whether to legalize adult marijuana possession and sales. This change is not just for those seeking it for medical use. The Tribal Council agreed last week to place the question on the ballot during the tribe’s Sept. 7, 2023 general election.
In 2021, the tribe also decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana within the Eastern Band’s 57,000-acre (23,000-hectare) Qualla Boundary. It also formed a medical marijuana program that includes a tribal-owned business to grow cannabis and sell it in a large dispensary that remains under construction. This facility will be the first and only place to legally purchase marijuana in North Carolina.
The medical marijuana dispensary was supposed to open by the fall of 2023, although that goal is not possible, because Eastern Band Principal Chief Richard Sneed vetoed $64 million in additional funds toward the project’s completion in the spring of 2023.
The initial dispensary will be located in the tribe’s old bingo hall near Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort. At the present, the intent is for this facility to be open to tribal members only, but will expand to other residents later. Medical cards, needed to purchase products, containing THC, also will be issued to tribal members initially. THC is the substance that’s primarily responsible for the effects of marijuana on a person’s mental state. Card applications from all North Carolina residents are now being accepted.
Potential economic impact of marijuana legalization
The federally recognized EBCI has about 14,000 members. Approximately, 9,600 people live on Qualla Boundary Reservation. Most tribal financial benefits are limited to those members on the reservation.
Cherokee, NC is located about 51 miles (82 km) west of Asheville . . . 70 miles (113 km) east of Knoxville, TN . . . 104 miles (167 km) northwest of Greenville, SC . . . 161 miles (259 km) north of Atlanta . . . and 165 miles (266 km) northwest of Charlotte, NC. Georgia has legalized medical marijuana and is quite likely to legalize adult use of marijuana in the near future. Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina continue to consider marijuana, even for medical use, as an illegal substance.
The cultivation and regional marketing of marijuana on the reservation could cause mind-boggling impacts on its economy and landscape. Harrah’s Cherokee Casino in western North Carolina contributes more than $380 million directly to its local economy, according to a new report by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. However, that impact is concentrated into the bank accounts of a relatively small number of business owners, most of whom are not Native Americans. In fact, the retail, restaurant and motel sectors are dominated by Russian and Ukrainian immigrants, who immigrated to the Asheville, NC area after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
As long time Western North Carolina residents can tell you, this gambling-oriented economy is sucking the economic, cultural and moral life out of the rest of that region. Once thriving towns that were oriented to family-oriented tourism, are now dying on the vine. They now have a decadent look to them. The endemic presence of gambling addicts, plus the Illegal drug manufacturing, distribution and consumption is driving away family tourism. Gamblers tend to spend very little money outside the immediate areas of the two Cherokee casinos.
In my last visit to the region in 2017 during the peak leaf color season, Georgia Mountain towns were packed to the brim with tourists. Just across the state line in North Carolina, there were many closed businesses and near empty parking lots in those that were still open . . . except for the Murphy, NC KFC, which seemed to be a Mecca for gamblers sitting at table alone and gambling away on lap top computers.
Public gambling began on the Cherokee Reservation in 1982, after a federal court issued a decision that exempted Indian reservations from state limits on bingo prizes.
In 1980, the closest town to Cherokee, Bryson City, had a population of 1,556. It is now estimated to have 1,447 residents . . . which is disproportionately composed of the elderly and recent immigrants, who work at low-paying jobs at restaurants and motels in Cherokee.
Few Cherokees on the reservation even have jobs or own businesses. They live off the gambling casino profits. It has one of the highest percentages of unemployed adults among local governments in the Southeast, if not the highest.
Murphy, NC is the site of a Cherokee casino built in 2015 and is 57 miles from Cherokee. In 1980, it had a population of 2,070. It is now estimated to be 1,639. The casino has had little impact on the population and a negative impact on local businesses. Nearby Brasstown, NC has dropped from 2,380 in 1980 to an estimated 1,070 in 2023.
Marijuana profits on the Cherokee Reservation could conceivably dwarf casino profits and exceed a $billion annually, if neighboring legislatures continue to balk on approving cultivation of marijuana. Much of Qualla’s land is not suitable for cultivation or is already developed. This means that future cultivation must be in greenhouses on agricultural terraces.
Would a massive influx of marijuana lovers to Cherokee, NC have any positive economic impact on the remainder of Western North Carolina? . . . perhaps replacing the former spending of family vacationers? That remains to be seen . . . and is certainly debatable.
Now you know!
The Americas Revealed 
Richard,
I’ve been to the Harrah’s Cherokee in Murphy, NC. Honestly, it is nothing to truly write home about.
You’re right, observably, there isn’t much for growth from the Casino, especially in its infancy, and it isn’t exactly accommodating for a Casino town.
The mountains around Murphy are alluringly beautiful, as well as the Ocoee River for rafting right down the road. Then there’s the boxy little Harrah’s, reminiscent of some po-dunk Casino’s up in Oxford, Maine. Clunky on the outside, sucking gamblers dry on the inside.
They could probably benefit from some advice from Mohegan Sun up in Connecticut, which is probably one of the most beautifully built Casinos on the East Coast, but it will most likely be run to the ground and abandoned long before it makes positive localized impacts in and around Murphy.
Build it bigger and better may not necessarily be accommodating either… there’s still no promise gamblers or tourists might come, and then how many are transient as opposed to those who actually stay permanently?
Everything you’ve presented points to eventual net loss of local/indigenous Cherokee (arguable) inhabitants.
Murphy is not a huge town. Casino infrastructure takes time for true net positive profits to mature and that does stay in the hands of a few as opposed to the many it could truly and positively influence over time.
Gambling on gambling or weed, if that’s the sad and honest question for Murphy, I would offer, get out of dodge, and if actually seeking major profit, get a tasty dose of super blitzed gamblers at the KFC, or truly make a mile long stretch of 24 hour Waffle houses, Omlette Houses, Huddle Houses, iHops, or even Whattaburgers, to support the soon to be high night life culture and rafting hippies down steam at the Ocoee River who crave midnight munchie snacks.
Build the Whattaburger… there will be much rejoicing, and they they will come 24 hours a day!
Very Respectfully,
Zac
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The Murphy Casino has been open for eight years. It has turned once beautiful, prosperous Andrews, NC into a ghost town and caused many family oriented businesses to close in Murphy. During the Great Recession, I lived across the state line from Murphy in the Blairsville, GA area. Murphy looked a whole lot more prosperous than Blairsville. I was shocked how blighted Murphy had become in 2017, when the rest of the nation was prospering. Dixie casinos do not attract customers, who are prone to support the arts or fine restaurants.
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What, if any, evidence of cannabis use have you seen historically among native American peoples? Historically it’s known to be from Kush (Afghanistan) but I believe there were some pre-Columbian references at some point.
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I have never read any report, which found cannabis in the New World, but it is always possible. The Natives did have quite a few indigenous plants, which gave them “a run for the money,” LOL
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Casinos absolutely destroyed toe sweet nature of New Orleans- it just turned raw- now we know why all this stuff was illegal I am a pharmacist and a pharmaceutical scientist absolutely opposed to recreational mj- it can hurt people but they are told “it never killed anyone”. Yes- it does kill people, especially those with particular cardiac anomalies. It is my understanding from FDA that over 100 INDs have been filed. Maybe this can somehow help the quality of the products offered at the places with zero experience. Maybe the good pharmaceutical scientists in NC will get a chance to make good medical products. TPTB take the absolutely most difficult dosage forms, nanoparticles, and tell people with zero education and experience they can make it to fit all different people’s metabolic profile. Go figure. If you know anyone that wants good GMP product, especially Native- because their metabolism can be different- I will help them. Like you, I am very good at my work. And like JJ Cale, I am a real musician LOL. Do you know Brandon Thornton of Arkansas?
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No I don’t. However, he is probably related to the Georgia or Virginia Thorntons. Genetically, I am not a Thornton.
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