Last week, the Cherokee tribal council voted to purchase 95 acres of trust land in North Carolina for $15 million. The council said it will dedicate the land to housing development and medical cannabis production.
Speaking on behalf of the Lands Acquisition Committee, which vetted the proposals prior to bringing them before the council, Principal Chief Richard Sneed said that, “both groups of properties were appraised prior to the pandemic, with those assessments coming in about $3.5 million higher than the final asking price.”
Sneed went on to tell Smoky Mountain News that, “We can only assume that the value is more now.”
This purchase comes less than a year after Sneed helped pave the way for medical cannabis within the Cherokee community. An ordinance Sneed described as “A compassion-care issue” to Scott Mckie of The One Feather adding that, “We are sovereign, and if we’re going to be sovereign then we should act like that, exercise our sovereignty. This is what our people are asking for.”
For now, North Carolina is just one of thirteen states that are still in the dark ages and lack direct access to medical cannabis. A bill in the North Carolina Senate, known as the NC Compassionate Care Act, would make medical marijuana legal for a narrowly crafted group of people diagnosed with certain medical conditions including cancer, epilepsy, positive HIV or AIDS status, or post traumatic stress disorder.
With the FDA having already approved drugs like Epidiolex, a cannabis-derived medication for treating rare seizure disorders, and the general public shifting their attention away from the War on Drugs, the argument that cannabis has no medicinal value is about as outdated as the water in your bong.
