ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Come Saturday, hundreds of smokers are expected to roll into Cherokee. It’s 4/20 — a date marijuana smokers and non-smokers recognize as a national holiday for cannabis culture.
It’s also the day Qualla Enterprises LLC will be opening Great Smoky Cannabis Co., a seed-to-sale operation that will provide regulated access to medicinal cannabis products.
“I think they’re going to be busy,” Neil Denman, director of the Cannabis Control Board for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians said with a laugh.
Hotels and motels in the area have seen a boost in business, but they’re not attributing it to the dispensary’s opening.
“I don’t know if it’s the truck show in Maggie Valley or the dispensary,” an employee at Qualla Motel and Cabins said. “During this season, we start to book up because of the events happening around us.”
Jimmy Hill, assistant manager at Peter’s Pancakes & Waffles, agreed.
“I say we’ll get a bump, a little extra business,” Hill said. “But there’s a car show over in Gatlinburg, too. So, there’s going to be a boost either way.”
The dispensary, which has been several years in the making, will open with such items as flower and vape products, edibles and topicals.
Denman said 163 work cards were issued for the project, including employees for the farm, operations and dispensary.
The dispensary is expected to open at 10 a.m.
Sales are limited to those older than 21 who hold a medical cannabis patient card. The medical cannabis patient cards are issued by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Cannabis Control Board.
Denman said the CCB approved just shy of 1,100 cards for North Carolina residents and little more than 300 cards for enrolled members of the tribe.
The CCB also plans to serve individuals with out-of-state medical cards or other tribal medical cannabis cards.
Officials at Cherokee Indian Police Department declined to comment on whether extra patrols were planned for Saturday. Efforts to reach authorities at sheriff’s offices in Haywood, Jackson and Swain counties were not immediately successful.
Paul Armentano, deputy director of NORML, a nonprofit organization working to reform marijuana laws, said North Carolina is among a minority of states that does not provide regulated access to medical cannabis products. He said lawmakers’ failure to address this issue runs contrary to public and scientific opinion.
“While it is a step forward that limited access to these important products is set to begin on tribal lands, the reality is that many if not most North Carolinians will continue to remain without access to medical cannabis until either lawmakers provide a statewide solution or until voters demand that they do,” Armentano said via email.
Activist Todd Stimson once walked from Asheville to Raleigh to raise awareness of the medical benefits of marijuana.
Stimson, who lived in the Asheville area for about 30 years, served 25 months in prison after being found guilty of two counts of marijuana trafficking related to the medical marijuana facility he was operating.
“I’m just happy they’re making steps, moving forward in North Carolina and happy it’s in Western North Carolina,” Stimson, who now lives in New York, said by phone on Friday of the Cherokee dispensary. “It’s nice that it’s opening up.”
“Now I’m in New York, standing in front of my plants, my legally grown plants,” Stinson said.