Charlotte Vietnam vet with PTSD says marijuana helps. He’ll buy it at Cherokee dispensary.
Tony feels anxious most of the time.
He doesn’t like the dark.
“Noise bothers me,” he said. “I can’t sleep.”
Tony, a 75-year-old south Charlotte resident, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in the late 1980s, and its symptoms are with him to this day.
The retired U.S. Postal Service carrier from Long Island, N.Y., traces the condition to his service in the Air Force during the Vietnam War in 1970-71.
Over the decades, he argued with his postal bosses when he knew it was better to listen, learn and get along, he told The Charlotte Observer at his home Thursday. That was another sign of his PTSD, he said.
Smoking marijuana was the only remedy he found to calm his nerves, help him sleep and hold down a job as he and his wife raised their two daughters and son, he said.
His doctor agreed, Tony said, and last year signed the form he needed to get a medical cannabis card from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Cannabis Control Board.
The card will let him buy product at the tribe’s cannabis superstore set to open April 20 in the North Carolina mountains. He’s one of more than 500 North Carolina residents who now have one.
He requested the Observer not publish his last name. He’s concerned he could be arrested for smoking a product that’s illegal under N.C. law, he said.
He’s already booked a nearby hotel room and plans to walk through the dispensary doors when it opens at 10 that morning.
Called Great Smoky Cannabis Company, the dispensary is in the tribe’s refurbished old bingo hall at U.S. 19 and Bingo Loop Road, near Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort. That’s in Cherokee, 46 miles west of Asheville in the Great Smoky Mountains.
The dispensary will open “with high-quality tested products,” according to a recent news release by Qualla Enterprises LLC, the tribe’s cannabis subsidiary.
Products include flower, vape items, edibles and topicals, officials said, and the selection “will continue to grow and evolve each month.”
The store will be the only place in North Carolina where such sales are legal.
554 N.C. residents have cannabis cards
As of Wednesday, Tony was among 554 North Carolinians who applied for and received medical cannabis cards from the tribe’s Cannabis Control Board. Only cardholders can buy at the dispensary.
They join 174 enrolled members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians who also received cards, said Neil Denman, executive director of the board.
No patient cards have been issued to residents outside of the state so far, Denman said.
Several hundred more applications “are under review and pending approval once we receive all necessary documentation,” Denman said in an email.
The numbers, he said, are “definitely lower than were expected,” for both tribal members and N.C. residents.
“But interest is starting to pick up” since Qualla Enterprises, the tribe’s cannabis subsidiary, recently announced the dispensary opening date, he said.
The cards cost $100 annually for residents of North Carolina and other states and $50 a year for enrolled Cherokee members.
People apply for the cards through the Cannabis Control Board website, https://ebci-ccb.org/.
People need a doctor to sign a form confirming they have any of 18 conditions that the tribe says cannabis can help treat.
Can you take the cannabis back home?
Having a medical cannabis card doesn’t entitle North Carolina residents to take what they buy at the dispensary off tribal lands and back to their homes, according to the Cannabis Control Board website.
That’s because cannabis remains illegal under federal and North Carolina law, the website explains.
Having the medical card also doesn’t entitle a person to consume medical cannabis in public, according to the board.
Can you smoke the pot while driving on tribal roads?
Best to keep whatever you buy unopened in your trunk, just like with cans and bottles of alcohol, tribal prosecutor Cody White said during a tribal council work session in February.
He met his wife in Vietnam
Tony said he will drive from his and his wife’s two-story townhome early on April 20 to the Cherokee dispensary.
Tony served in the Tactical Air Command unit of the Air Force and met his wife while serving in Vietnam. He returned to the country a year after completing his tour of duty to take her to America.
He and his family moved to Charlotte 18 years ago. He said he was tired of the noise in New York.
He chose Charlotte because of how nice a service member from Charlotte was to him while both were at an Air Force base in California, he said.
Tony was young and penniless when he entered the military, he said.
He wanted to buy a car one day, and his fellow serviceman co-signed a loan for him. The serviceman was always so pleasant and helpful, he said.
“People in Charlotte are nice,” he thought decades later when considering where to move.
He wants smokables with ‘high THC levels’
Smoking marijuana has always improved his symptoms, Tony said.
“It helps a lot,” he said. “I’m happy. I eat better. I sleep better. I think I do everything better.”
At the dispensary, “I’ll look for smokable products with a lot of THC,” he said.
THC is the main mind-altering compound in the marijuana plant.
Prescription medications never helped his symptoms, Tony said.
Decades ago, he said, “I turned to marijuana, and it’s great.”
