[[{“value”:”
When the Great Smoky Cannabis Company opens its doors on Saturday, history will be made.
The retail outlet sells marijuana, gummies, and cannabis-infused drinks and more. It will be the first and only place for adults to legally purchase weed – and the Eastern Band of Cherokee expects a crowd.
Gerard Albert III
Qualla Enterprises is a seed-to-sale operation that grows the cannabis plants from seeds then creates 265 products in-house which will be for sale recreationally for the first time on Saturday.
“Numbers have readily increased and then we’ve started offering promotions and weekly specials which definitely amped it up,”Destiny Crowe, a cannabis consultant at the dispensary, said.
One year ago, Cherokee voters passed a referendum directing tribe leaders to authorize the controlled sale of recreational marijuana on the Qualla Boundary. The tribe first legalized medical marijuana in 2021.
In April, the dispensary opened for medical marijuana sales, later expanding to recreational sales for all federally recognized tribal members on July 4. Crowe, who is an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee, says that the number of customers in the dispensary has steadily increased as legal access has expanded.
“We are extremely excited for our recreation (sales) because as you know Cherokee is a tourist town, we rely on our tourists so being rec is just going to do wonders for the facility as well as our community,” Crowe said.
READ MORE: FAQ: Can you buy marijuana on the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina?
Crowe’s job is to help customers find the right product. She points out vapes, hard candies and mints. All of the 265 products are made in-house on the dispensary and farm properties which includes a commercial kitchen.
The budding industry promises to be a big revenue stream for the tribe which has had financial success with its casinos.
Crowe worked as a table games dealer at Harrah’s Cherokee for 11 years. Now, as a dispensary employee, she is back in the former bingo hall where she was once trained as a casino employee.
“It’s funny because we started then, you know doing something to better our tribe through the casino … and here we are against starting another adventure to better our tribe but with cannabis,” Crowe said.
Crowe says she has seen folks from across the region driving to the dispensary. While 38 states allow medical marijuana sales, only 24 states – and none in the Southeast – allow recreational sales, according to the National Conference of State Legislators.
Outside the sovereign Cherokee nation, possession of marijuana remains a prosecutable crime in North Carolina.
Qualla Enterprises, which operates the tribe’s dispensary, has scaled up production to align with the expanding customer base, said General Manager Forrest Parker.
Gerard Albert III
Forrest Parker of Qualla Enterprises shows off the rows of hoop houses that make up the cannabis farm.
“As we go into full adult use … we can really be positioned to supply the most robust menu that anyone that has ever seen in cannabis. That’s our goal,” Parker said.
Parker showed BPR around the 22-acre farm which sits on tribal land in Swain County near the Tuckasegee River. The farm started two years ago and is a patchwork of hoop houses, production facilities and greenhouses which depend on sunlight to grow the cannabis plants.
READ MORE: North Carolina’s first marijuana dispensary opened last month on Cherokee land
Inside various buildings, employees process the cannabis into different products. In one room, workers trim cannabis flowers while listening to Joy Division radio on Spotify.
In another, “I want to smoke with you…” trickles out of a speaker in the warehouse as Steven Watty from Big Cove uses a large metal machine to make pre-roll joints.
“This is a dream job being here. [I] never expected to be here, you know got the opportunity to come here and work and be a part of here history in our tribe. I love it,” Watty said. He explains that this job has helped him while being in recovery.
Gerard Albert III
Qualla Enterprises employee Steven Watty shows off his work at the farm.
“I’m the Cannabis shirt man down here,” he adds, pointing to his Cheech and Chong shirt.
Parker and other proponents of cannabis see the business as an opportunity for the Eastern Band to diversify its economic portfolio.
“Our tribe has always been very smart and conservatively cautious and strategic and how it approaches things and we’re just really trying to maintain those values,” Parker said.
Cannabis isn’t the tribe’s biggest investment, it is just one piece of its economic portfolio. Tribal council has invested in many other projects since the farm was started in 2022. Last year, the world’s largest Buc-ees, a gas station and convenience store, opened as part of the tribe’s plans to build an entertainment district in Sevierville, Tenn.
Parker says the investment in Qualla Enterprises isn’t just about profits. It’s about jobs for the community.
Lee Griffin agrees. He’s the human resources director for Qualla Enterprises and one of the first employees at the company, which boasts about 160 staff today.
Griffin says more than 90% of employees are tribal members.
“We’re really proud of the fact that we are putting our enrolled members to work,” Griffin said.“One of the things we’ve been able to do is hire folks who don’t really fit in a box of working at the casino or they don’t work for the tribe.”
Griffin said it was important to the team to employ folks who don’t fit in the “corporate mold.” To align with that goal, Griffin says many jobs do not require a high school degree, vehicle access, or have restrictions if you have a criminal record.
Griffin says the plan is to have 250 employees by the end of the year and that the goal by 2029 is to have a workforce of 1,000.
If Qualla Enterprises meets its expected growth, it will be one of the largest employers in Western North Carolina.
This weekend, the dispensary’s recreational opening will have events all day including an appearance by viral video star Doggface, famously a cranberry juice drinker and Fleetwood Mac fan.
“}]] When the Great Smoky Cannabis Dispensary opens its doors on Saturday, history will be made as the first place to purchase recreational marijuana in North Carolina – and the Southeast. Read More