Cherokee, North Carolina – In a converted bingo hall deep in the Appalachian Mountains, Myrtle Driver led the charge to defy the state of North Carolina.
The spry 80-year-old, a venerated member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, handed a cashier a string of purple wampum beads, a traditional Indigenous currency. In return, she received packets of marijuana pre-rolls and edibles.
With that, Driver made the first purchase at the Great Smoky Cannabis Company superstore, the only seed-to-sale Indigenous weed operation in a part of the United States where marijuana is illegal.
Members of the tribe cheered and wiped away tears. Then, the store’s doors opened to the 800 customers lined up outside in the rain, each with a card certifying they were approved to buy medical marijuana.
They were Indigenous, Black and white. They were Republicans and Democrats. Some were even on crutches. One construction worker drove nine hours from Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, just to show support.
All were seeking regulated legal weed, even if it was only legal on the tribe’s 57,000-acre territory, known as the Qualla Boundary.
By defying North Carolina authorities, the band says it is exercising its right to set its own rules, as it did before white men came to this land.
“We’re not asking permission from the state; we’re telling them,” explained Forrest Parker, the general manager of Qualla Enterprises LLC, the tribal-run cannabis outfit that oversees the business.
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is one of 574 federally recognised tribes in the US, each with inherent sovereignty: In other words, they have the right to self-govern.
To the US government, that means tribal land falls under federal jurisdiction — but not state authority.
The cannabis superstore, however, has rankled some Republican legislators in North Carolina, who have been pushing the federal government to intercede on their behalf. That raises questions about the limits of tribal sovereignty — and whose authority should prevail on Indigenous land.
“It’s unique — a real sovereign flex,” John Oceguera, a cannabis lobbyist and former Nevada legislator from the Walker River Paiute tribe, said of the superstore as he watched from the sidelines as customers filed in.
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