In a hearing with AG Pam Bondi, Tillis accused the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of transporting cannabis illegally and targeting underaged consumers.
From NC Newsline by Brandon Kingdollar October 9 2025
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) urged United States Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) over cannabis sales that he alleged target young people and involve illegal transportation of a controlled substance.
During a recent Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing Tillis told Bondi that the tribe’s marketing of recreational marijuana grown and sold on its land reminds him of the tobacco industry’s marketing tactics. He presented posters with advertisements from the Great Smoky Cannabis Company, operated by Qualla Enterprises, LLC, which is owned by the EBCI.
Tillis singled out a promotion for pumpkin spice-flavored cannabis products among other Halloween offerings. “This worries me because this is a money-making enterprise. It kind of seems like it’s preying on younger people.”
Because of the principle of tribal sovereignty, federally recognized tribes like the EBCI are able to exercise their own authority over regulation of the cannabis industry. In 2024, the tribe opened its first cannabis dispensary, allowing North Carolinians to legally purchase recreational marijuana on its lands — which becomes an illegal substance should they take it off EBCI land.
“Now, it’s illegal in North Carolina and Tennessee and Georgia and South Carolina to buy pot, but apparently, you can go order it on an app and ride over there to the boundary and get it,” Tillis said Tuesday. “I assume they’re not delivering it outside of the boundary, because I think that would be illegal.”
Bondi said she is “not familiar with that establishment” but promised to have her team look into the app and the cannabis company’s commercial activities. She said “based on federal law,” transporting marijuana through a jurisdiction where it’s banned would be illegal.
In a statement Thursday, EBCI Principal Chief Michell Hicks criticized Tillis for misrepresenting the tribe’s cannabis industry, asserting that its operations are “fully compliant with federal and tribal law.”
“Senator Thom Tillis knows full well that the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians operates squarely within the law. Yet once again, he has chosen to ignore that truth to advance his own political agenda,” Hicks said. “To suggest the EBCI would endanger children through marketing or sales practices is inaccurate and it is offensive to the values that guide our tribe.”
Tillis’s remarks follow a March joint letter from his office and Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) demanding law enforcement agencies “uphold current federal and state laws” around marijuana. That letter was not addressed to the EBCI itself, Hicks said, because “his accusations cannot withstand scrutiny.”
Hicks said Tillis’s claims are motivated by frustration over the EBCI’s opposition to recognition for the Lumbee Tribe, which has sought federal status promised by President Donald Trump during the 2024 campaign through a bill sponsored by Tillis.
Speaking to Bondi, Tillis said he has “no problem” with marijuana sales, but stressed that “we’ve got to get it solved at the federal level,” observing that even Republican-majority states like North Carolina and Bondi’s home state of Florida are trending toward legalization. His issue, he said, is with “unsafe and inconsistent practices” like those he charges the EBCI with.
He noted that billboards in Charlotte advertise one of the largest dispensaries in the United States and asked Bondi about the legality of them shipping cannabis grown on their farm to the dispensary through non-tribal land.
“I can’t find any legal way to get this pot that is grown here to the dispensary that’s in another non-contiguous area of the boundaries,” he said. “I’m just trying to figure out how the Eastern Band of the Cherokee are legally transporting what they’re growing at scale here.”
Tillis focused the rest of his questions for Bondi on the deployment of the National Guard in major American cities, which he said he is having a “real struggle” with. He said law enforcement failures should be addressed through state and local elections, not federal intervention.
“I reject any notion that Charlotte’s on that list, by the way, so whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, bring it on,” he said.
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